I actually had forgotten that today was the first official day of Fall (probably because it’s been 80 degrees outside all week…) until someone at work asked if that’s why I brought in this cheesecake. Honestly, I was just recipe testing but it worked out and we got to celebrate the First Day of Fall with delicious pumpkin cheesecake.

There is an entire can of pumpkin puree in this, which makes the texture of the pumpkin part somewhere between pumpkin pie and cheesecake. There’s also a good amount of spices and, my favorite part, a gingersnap crust. If you really want to go the extra mile, you could use homemade gingersnaps, but I went with store-bought in this case.

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 cups crushed gingersnaps
• 4 Tbsp butter, melted

Cheesecake

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 8 oz. packages cream cheese, room temp
• 4 eggs, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 15 oz. pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease and line with parchment paper a 9×13 pan.

Mix the crust ingredients together until it resembles wet sand. Pat into the bottom of prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes. Let cool while you assemble the cheesecake.

Beat cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla.

Set aside 2/3 of the batter.

To the remaining 1/3, add the pumpkin and spices. Mix until fully incorporated.

Spread 3/4 of the plain batter over the cooled crust. Spread the pumpkin batter over the plain and then dollop the remaining plain batter on top. Use a knife to swirl the batters together.

Bake 45-50 minutes, or until just set. Cool completely before serving. Enjoy!