Howdy Kitchen: Gingerbread Cheesecake

At Christmastime, my love for mint grows about 100 times.  :)

I have made a few various mint-type cheesecakes.  And any that I have eaten, I have loved!

This year, after talking to a recipient of one of my free cheesecakes,

we decided to go with another traditional flavor for the holidays....

GINGERBREAD!

I haven't made a gingerbread cheesecake before, so was a excited about making this.

One ingredient I knew I would need....molasses. 

Since I wasn't sure about the other spices, I searched online and ended up with

Martha Stewart's Gingerbread Cheesecake recipe

as my inspiration for the recipe.

But, because I am me, I did change it up a bit...but not much.

I actually made 2, with 2 different crusts.

The first crust, I crushed up Keebler Gingerbread cookies.

The second, the remnants crushed up from the gingersnap cookies I made for the mini gingerbread cheesecakes.

Filling Ingredients:

4 8ox blocks of cream cheese, softened to room temperature

 1 1/2 cups sugar
4 oz sour cream

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup molasses
{I started with 1/4 of a cup, but it just wasn't enough for me.  So, if you aren't afraid, take a quick taste sample to see if you want to add more or not.}
1 1/2+ tsp ground ginger

1+ tsp ground cinnamon

1+ tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

1.
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees, or whatever temp you have learned is best to bake your cheesecake.  I bake mine at about 315-325.  A lower temp, but for a few more minutes.

2.

Make crust.
I mixed about 2 cups of crushed cookies with at least 4 Tbsp of melted butter.

If it isn't moist enough to form the crust, just add more melted butter.

3.

Beat cream cheese with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in sugar, vanilla, and sour cream, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping sides of bowl as needed. Beat in molasses and spices. Pour filling into crust.

4.
Bake until cheesecake is set but still slightly wobbly in center, 60 to 65 minutes.
After removing from the oven, run a knife or spring form pan tool around edges of cheesecake to loosen the filling from the edges.
Let it cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 8 hours (preferably overnight).

Topping Idea:

Put a dollop of Cool Whip on each slice of cheesecake, topped off with a cinnamon red hot.
{For some reason, I think of little gingerbread people having red hots on them as buttons or something.}

Or better yet, make your own whipped cream!
I'm thinking even cinnamon whipped cream could be good.

Check out a chocolate whipped cream recipe I made and alter it to your liking,

or even this recipe from the Farm Chicks.

Whipped Cream Topping:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon honey

Add all ingredients into a large {chilled} bowl and whip until stiff peaks form. 
Refrigerate any leftovers.

To make the mini cheesecakes, I used a Norpro 3919 Mini Cheesecake Pan that I ordered from Amazon back in May.  I haven't used this pan up until now, and hadn't even opened the packing up.  I knew I didn't want to lose the little bottoms of the pan.

But wouldn't you know, when I opened it up and unwrapped those little round things, 2 were missing! 
Now to see if I can get replacements for them. 

But that pan is pretty sweet!  I need to keep playing with it, to figure out how long to make the cheesecakes.  But everyone seemed to enjoy them today when I took them on my school visit {there were rave reviews from the counselors and secretaries}.

  :)

Enjoy!