Brown Sugar Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Shortbread Crust

For years... 21 of them to be exact... I swore I hated pumpkin pie. Then a few years ago I gave into the smell of fresh baked pumpkin pie and had a piece. The rest is history.

When I went in for the first bite of this cheesecake, my eyes closed and and savored the taste for a good 30 seconds. It's a creamy dreamy pumpkin cheesecake. It's the perfect marriage of pumpkin and cheesecake, neither one overpowers the other and the chocolate shortbread crust adds a great textural difference to the creaminess of the dessert.

The original author of this recipe had issues with her cheesecake cracking. So I decided to combine her suggested cooking method and my personal favorite of using a water bath like I did here.

My cheesecake turned out perfect, not a single crack! Well there wasn't any cracks throughout the middle of the cheesecake, there was a little crack that went all the way around the outside rim of the. But I'm not going to count that as a crack. Ha! So I'm going to venture to say that a water bath is the key to a non cracked cheesecake.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, this dessert is a great option since you can make it the night before.

Brown Sugar Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Shortbread Crust
(Original Recipe from The Hungry Mouse)


Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
5 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
10 Tbsp. butter, diced and softened
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. confectioner's sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Filling:
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 Tbsp. cognac
1 15-oz. can 100% pure pumpkin
24 oz. cream cheese (3 8-oz. bricks), at room temperature
1 3/4 cups dark brown sugar
4 eggs

Crust Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9-inch spring-form pan with non-stick cooking spray. Cover the outside of the pan with a double layer of aluminum foil, pan needs to be water tight, set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar and butter, beat until well combined. Add egg yolks and vanilla, beat until combined. At this point the mixture will be thick, fluffy, and pale-buttery yellow. Add flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Beat until dry ingredients are well combined. The dough should feel a little like Play Doh. Place dough into prepared spring-form pan, press dough into bottom and up the sides of the pan.

Prick the dough in many places with a fork. The butter in the dough will release steam as it bakes, the holes allow the steam to escape and keeps your crust from getting air bubbles.

Place pan into pre-heated oven. Bake for 20 minutes or until it's completely opaque in color and begins to brown. When crust is done, remove from oven and set on wire rack to cool.

Filling Directions
While crust is cooling, begin filling. Lower oven temperature to 325 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add brown sugar, beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well combined. At this point mixture should be think light brown and soup-ish. Add pumpkin and cognac (if you prefer to not use cognac you may substitute vanilla extract) and beat to combine. Add flour and pumpkin pie spice, beating gently to combine.

Bake Cheesecake
Pour filling into cooled crust. Pour just until it fills the crust. I ended up only using about half of my filling... I put the rest of the filling in the freezer to be used sometime soon, darn!

Place foil covered pan into a jellyroll pan and add enough water to cover the entire jellyroll pan but not enough to spill over the sides. Very carefully place in pre-heated oven. Bake for 75 minutes. Turn heat off, crack open the oven door about 4 or 5 inches.

Leave cheesecake in there for an additional 30 minutes. Once the 30 minutes are up, remove from oven and cool in pan on wire rack for 30-45 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator for at least 6 hours (overnight is best) before serving.

Chill, slice, garnish with whipped cream, serve, and enjoy!