Happy Thanksgiving! Pumpkin swirl cheesecake

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians!  I hope all of you have had a safe and wonderful weekend, surrounded by good friends and family...and...of course a table ladened with the bounty of the season.

My Dear Little Cardamummy asked me to bring pumpkin pies to dinner (yes, plural).  I was all set to whip up something special but my body had other plans.

The day I was to bake I awoke with the beginnings of a cold.  Little surprise as my life has been busy as of late--between my new client that's a teeny bit of a distance away along with my volunteer responsibilities (oxymoron??) I've been burning the candle at both ends.  Long days, late nights and little time to actually take care of myself (or cook...or blog).  This isn't a complaint, just a statement of how my life is right now.

Knowing full well food I cook when I'm not feeling at my best rarely turns out well, I succumbed to the  bigscarymegamart and picked up a couple of pies. I must admit my heart seized a titch when I saw what their head office decreed as "regular price".. +$8!  The "sale" price was $6.  Good gravy.  Given these are factory pies, frozen and then heated in the bowels of the store, I question the $6 price tag...and do not believe the $8 at all.  Alas, I was in a bind and I paid $12 for two rather mediocre pies.

Thanks to Mum's home cooking and a bit of rest, I'm feeling a bit better now.

Needless to say, I wanted to get back into the kitchen and create an autumnal dessert.  My mind turned to my original thought of a swirled cheesecake.

Cheesecakes are rather easy to put together and once you master the basics, easily adapted to a myriad of flavours and combinations.  This time I decided to created a chai-spiced pumpkin and vanilla swirled cheesecake--something that celebrates the season's bounty and brings a titch of warmth to the cooler night air.

The resulting cheesecake is creamy, mildly spiced and perfect for a gathering.  If I were to have served this at dinner, I would have roasted some pear slices tossed in honey, vanilla and cinnamon and served each slice of cake with the warmed fruit with a spoon of Chantilly cream.

Chai-spiced pumpkin & vanilla swirled cheesecake
Yield: 1 20cm (8") cheesecake

Ingredients

For the crust
225g/560ml/2.25c graham wafer crumbs
100ml/0.33c+1Tbsp melted butter
pinch of salt

For the filling
750g/3 bricks cream cheese, at room temperature
250g /1.25c sugar
1tsp/5ml vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
3 eggs, at room temperature
100ml (0.33c + 1Tbsp) heavy cream, at room temperature
275g/280ml/1c+2Tbsp pureed pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
2 cloves, ground
2 pods' worth of cardamom seeds, ground
0.5tsp/2.5ml ground ginger
0.25tsp/1.25ml ground cinnamon
a kettle of boiling water

Method

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Wrap the outside of the springform pan with tinfoil (this will help to minimise leakage--both from the batter leaking out, but also the bain marie's water from seeping in.

For the crust:
Prepare the crust by mixing all its ingredients together and pressing firmly and evenly onto the bottom of the cakepan.  Set aside.

For the filling:
Cut the cream cheese into cubes, and cream together with sugar.  Blend in eggs, one at a time, scraping well between each addition.  Mix in vanilla and cream until well blended.

Reserve about one third of the batter in a jug and set aside.

Add the spices and pumpkin puree into the larger quantity of batter and blend until evenly mixed.

Pour half the pumpkin batter into the prepared cake tin and then pour, in alternate dollops the vanilla and pumpkin batters.  With a skewer or handle-end of a teaspoon, swirl the batters together until you've attained the desired visual effect.

Tap the filled tin on the counter to release any trapped air bubbles.

Place the tin in a roasting pan and pour boiling water in the roasting pan until it reaches approximately half-way up the side of the springform tin.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the outer area of the cheesecake is set and the middle jiggles.  Turn off the heat and let the cheesecake sit in the oven, as it cools, for one hour.

Remove  from the oven and let cool on the counter until it reaches room temperature.  Chill in the refrigerator.

Serve with Chantilly cream, poached or roasted pears, and/or drizzled caramel.

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Birthday, Michael

Today would have been My Darling One's 43rd birthday.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Michael adored desserts and cheesecake was one of his favourite treats. He never had an opportunity to eat the April 2009 Daring Baker's version, but I can assure you that he would have whole-heartedly approved.

My time has not been mine own, and as such I don't have a new recipe to post, but instead am leaving you with the lavender-vanilla cheesecake I made last year. It's a fabulous and easy and has become my go-to cheesecake recipe.

Have a lovely few days y'all. I'll be back in a few days.








cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake Centrepiece

• Recipe's origins: Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake
• Recipe's orginator: Abbey T.
• Our hostess: Jenny of Jenny Bakes

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

One of the lovely things about being a Daring Baker is I normally have at least one "real" reason to bake. It could be a friend's birthday or a fancy dinner party. This month is was my work anniversary.

Eight years. Good gravy.

I've developed a bit of a reputation of bringing in foods people would actually eat. Funny how there's a correlation between edibility and (as I deem it) "real" cooking/baking--as opposed to boxed cake mixes and Timbits from our office Timmy's. I don't know if this is the norm for the rest of you, but in our office, if it's your day you have to bring in the treats.

Totally unfair.

When I found out this month's challenge was cheesecake, I knew it would do well. When I found out we could play with the flavours I was torn. Do I do something "normal" -- fruity or boozey -- or do I do something that's a bit beyond normal?

Why be normal? It is my day after all, is it not?

After some thought and a bit of a consult with a colleague who's got a fairly good palate, I decided upon vanilla-lavender.

A bit daring, given many people don't think of lavender as a flavour, or if they do their only exposure was Thrills (aka: the gum that tastes like soap...and yes...I know it's supposed to taste like rose, but all the ones I had tasted like lavender) and they'd run screaming.

The cheesecake itself was easy to put together, but I felt some of the weight measurements were a titch off--for example, I thought the crust was far too oily so I added a couple of handfuls extra graham wafer crumbs, which helped to build "walls" of crust. The cheesecake itself was 2/3 vanilla and 1/3 lavender and I decided to not do a topping because I didn't want to overwhelm the delicate flavours. The flowers didn't impart much colour, so I added some hydrangea food colouring.

I've made many, many cheesecakes and most haven't cracked. I don't do a water bath normally--the one time I did it, it was...bad and it cracke. I didn't go back. But this challenge involved a water bath and well...I had do it. I swaddled the pan in tin foil, put it in my lasagne dish and poured in the boiling water. And hoped for a good result.

I am quite happy to say that the cheesecake turned out lovely. It was creamy and light and the flavour was so very, very good. Well...it must have been good. It disappeared within 40 minutes.

Here's the recipe, as I prepared it
Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:
crust:
225g graham cracker crumbs
125ml melted butter
25g sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients and press into a high-sided 20cm (8") springform pan. Press the crust just into the bottom and up the sides of the pan too. Set crust aside.


Filling
750g softened cream cheese, divided
210g sugar, divided
3 large eggs, divided
250 heavy cream, divided
1 tbsp. lemon juice, divided
1dpsn (10ml) vanilla bean paste
1tsp lavender buds

Cream together 500g cream cheese and 140g sugar until smooth. Add two of the eggs, one of a time, scraping down the bowl in between each addition. Add 160 ml heavy cream, vanilla and 1 dspn lemon juice, and blend until smooth. Set aside.

Steep the lavender buds with the remaining 90ml cream for five minutes. Decant the to a bowl, keeping the buds in the cream for another five minutes; strain out the buds (or you can do what I did and put the buds in a tea ball at the very beginning...much easier). Set aside.

Cream together 250g cream cheese and 70g sugar until smooth. Add the remaining egg and scrape down the bowl's sides. Blend in the lavender-flavoured cream and 1tsp lemon juice.

Pour the vanilla batter in the prepared crust and then dollop in the lavender batter. Take a skewer or a teaspoon's handle and swirl together the two batters. Tap the filled pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, or until the sides are set but the centre is very jiggly. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.





To see what the other Daring Bakers did, please visit our blogroll.

cheers!
jasmine