Happy Birthday, hubby! Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

It's my husband's birthday today!  He finally caught up with me (for a few months).  He LOVES pumpkin pie, so when I offered to make a pumpkin cheesecake for him tonight, he enthusiastically said YESYESYES!

I found a recipe on Once Upon a Chef that looked promising...

Ingredients:

• Crust
• 7-1/2 ounces gingersnaps (or 1-1/2 cups finely ground gingersnap crumbs)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• I doubled it because I wanted to go up the sides a bit.  It was too much! I'll probably toast the left over crumbs to use as a crumble for something...

• Filling
• 1 15-ounce can pumpkin purée
• Not pumpkin pie filling, or it'll be too sweet and too spiced!
• 1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Three 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 5 large eggs, room temperature

• Caramel sauce
• There is a recipe on the original above, but I'm opting to use the Apple Cider Caramel I made last week.  Yummmmmy!!

Instructions:

1.  Mise en place the crust:
   
2. Preheat oven to 325°F.
3. Wrap a 10" springform pan in several layers of aluminum foil (heavy duty is best) and spray the inside with non-stick cooking spray.
    
• This step is to keep the water out when you do the water bath.  We discovered later that I didn't have a roasting pan the right size, so really didn't need to do this step. Oh well.
4. Blitz the cookies and brown sugar in a food processor until a fine dust.
5. Stream in melted butter while pulsing until combined
6. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the springform pan and up the sides a bit, as desired.
7. Bake crust @ 325° for 15 minutes.
8. Remove and set on a cooling rack while you make the filling.
9. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil to use for the water bath.
10. Mise en place the filling:
    
11. In a sauce pan, combine pumpkin, sugar, spices, and salt.
12. Bring to a "sputter" (this mixture is too thick to really boil), stirring constantly.
13. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes until it is thick, dark, and shiny.  Stir constantly!
    
14. Put the hot mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer (you can use a large food processor if you have an 11-12C one).
15. Beat for a minute or so to release steam and smooth out the texture.
16. Add the cream and cream cheese and process for 30 seconds to a minute.  Scrape the sides of the bowl, as needed.
     
17. Add the eggs and lightly mix until just combined (15 seconds at most).  Do not over-mix this!
     
18. Put the foil-wrapped springform pan and crust into a larger roasting pan with high edges. Pour the batter into the cooled crust.
    
19. Pour enough boiling water (step 9) into the roasting pan to reach 1/2 way up the springform pan.
• I didn't have a roasting pan (ooooops), so I put a cake tin filled with water into the oven to at least introduce some moisture.  My cheesecake cracked a little, but not enough to worry about.
20. Bake at 325° until just set - about 1 1/2 hours.
21. Remove and put the entire roasting pan on a wire rack to cool for 45 minutes.
22. Remove the springform pan from the water bath, discard the foil, and put on a wire rack to continue to cool for 3 hours.
23. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours (and up to overnight).

Here it is all ready to go - we just have to wait 7 hours for it to cool!

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts

Last night I posted a recipe I tried for Apple Cider Caramel.  Yummmmmm

Now today, the recipe I made to go with it:  Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts (based off the recipe from King Arthur's Flour)!  I don't have a doughnut pan (yet), so made them in my mini-muffin pans to resemble doughnut holes.  It worked pretty well, I think!

Ingredients
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup applesauce, unsweetened
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons boiled cider
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger*
1/8 teaspoon ground clove*
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour

* The original calls for just cinnamon; I added more for the flavors I like.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Put 1/2 C cider into a sauce pan, bring to a boil, and reduce until just a few Tbsps are left.  Set aside to cool.
3. In the stand of a mixer, combine all the ingredients except the flour and mix until well combined.
4. Add the flour and fold in gently until just mixed.  Lumps are ok; overmixing is bad.  Overmixing = tough nuggets that resemble doughnut holes but are no fun to eat.
5. Spray mini muffin pans (for doughnut holes) or doughnut tins with non-stick cooking spray.
6. Fill pans.
   
7. Bake ~10 minutes for doughnut holes or 15-18 minutes for doughnut pans.  A toothpick inserted at the end should come out clean, like with cake.
8. Loosen doughnuts from pan and let cool for 5 minutes.
9. Turn out onto cooling racks to cool.
10. (Optional) While still warm, but not hot, toss in a bowl of cinnamon-sugar to coat.
11. (Optional) Drizzle/glaze/dunk in the Apple Cider Caramel sauce from last night.

I skipped the sugar coating once I tasted them. SO yummy without the extra sweetness.  The caramel is a nice addition instead.