Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake

I decided to start with dessert for the Thanksgiving preparation! This cheesecake you can make up to 2 days in advance if you would like. So it's completely ideal that I made it tonight and it to be firming up in the fridge until it's time to indulge tomorrow afternoon! I'm pretty excited about this new dessert. Some people call me crazy because I just don't care for the taste of regular pumpkin pie. At first I thought it was because I just hadn't tried a good one, but after trying them for years now, I just don't like them. HOWEVER, combined in a cheesecake?! Now that sounds like something I could handle! And boy, oh boy am I excited because it taste AMAZING!!! Apparently, I didn't have a 9 inch. pie plate because I had some filling left over, but I made a crust-less cheesecake in a mini meatloaf foil pan!

If the mini version taste as good as the main one I created tonight....I don't even know what to say besides YUM-O. I can not wait to try it with the home-made gingersnap crust. So here we go - recipe time!

Ingredients for crust:

24 Gingersnap Cookies (you can also add 1/2 cup pecans, but I just forgot to get some)

2 Tbsp. sugar

3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Ingredients for filling:

3/4 cup sugar

2 pkg (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

2 large eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 Tbsp. flour

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 cup pure pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling), from 15-oz. can

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Make It:

1~ Crust: Heat Oven 350 degrees

If you don't have a food processor, a regular mixer works fine.

Pulse gingersnap cookies (and pecans if you like) until finely ground;

Add sugar;

Add butter and pulse to combine;

Press mixture evenly into bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate.

*I found if you just pour your crust mixture into your pie plate, shake plate and then push buttery crumbs up around the sides of the pie plate to create thick border of crust around sides, then flatten the rest of the crust to the bottom of the pan is the best way.

Bake crust for 10-12 minutes

2 ~ Filling:

Pulse together sugar and cream cheese until combined;

Scrape down sides and add eggs, milk, flour, and salt; process until smooth;

Save 1/3 cup of filling off to side;

Add pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice to rest of the filling until fully incorporated;

Scrape mixture into the baked crust (no need to cool crust);

Spoon the reserved cream cheese mixture over top and use a knife to swirl.

3~ Bake until the center is set but still trembles, 30-35 minutes.

4~ Let cool completely, then refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

~Made by: Holly