Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites

Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites
This recipe was a successfully failed cookie cutter experiment.  The failure was that I was hoping to cut the cheesecake with cookie cutters, but that didn't work out so well.  Everything kept getting stuck and I couldn't get the cheesecake out of the cutters.  After trying to cut out the cheesecake with the cookie cutters, I also realized it was a bad idea.  Cheesecake is not cheap to make and you lose way too much cheesecake by trying to cut them out.  Because of cost, I will not be trying to make cookie cutters work with cheesecake.
The success is that the pumpkin cheesecake recipe I made up was delicious!!! I covered them in white chocolate and chocolate, but, after doing that, I think I would have preferred just the cheesecake without the chocolate because it was so good. This is a great pumpkin cheesecake recipe and could easily replace any pumpkin pie recipes you might use for the holidays.  I highly recommend it.

Chocolate Covered Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients

Crust:

  • 1 1/2 C graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/4 C butter, melted

Cheesecake First Layer:

  • 4 (8oz) cream cheese, softened
  • 1 C sugar
  • 1/2 C sour cream
  • 4 eggs
  •  2t vanilla
  • 2 T flour
  • 1 t kosher salt

Cheesecake Second Layer:

  • 1/2 C (4oz) canned pumpkin
  • 1/4 t ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 t ground ginger
  • 1/2 t ground cinnamon
  • (above spices can be replaced with 1t pumpkin pie spice)

Recipe

  1. Preheat oven to 300 F.
  2. Add parchment paper to a 13x9 inch pan so it goes up over the sides at least an inch or more.
  3. Combine butter and graham cracker crumbs.  Press mixture evenly into prepared pan.  (No need to bake crust.) Set pan to the side.
  4. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and fluffy.
  5. On low speed, add in sour cream, eggs, vanilla, flour, and salt.  Beat until just combined.
  6. Pour half of the cheesecake mixture over your prepared crust.  Place pan in freezer for 10 minutes to help the layer firm up. Do not freeze layer.
  7. With the left over cheesecake mixture, add pumpkin, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon.  Mix until combined. (If the spices are not strong enough for you, add a bit more for flavor.)
  8. Pour pumpkin layer on top of cheesecake layer.
  9. Bake in oven for 50 minutes. Leave pan in oven, turn off oven and leave the door ajar for about 1 hour to finish cooking.  This will help reduce the chance of cracking.
  10. Take out of oven and let cool for about 3 hours.
  11. If eating only the cheesecake, refrigerate and eat when cold. If covering in chocolate, place pan in freezer.  Once frozen, cut into small squares and cover in melted chocolate of your choice.  Add chocolate drizzle or nothing at all.