Pumpkin Challenge: Cheesecake Armageddon

Well folks, I am just going to lay it out there: my pumpkin challenge was a complete and utter disaster.  I should have known it wasn’t meant to be when canned pumpkin was not available at the grocery store because of a pumpkin shortage.  But as luck would have it, my mom was coming into town and she happened to have a couple cans of pumpkin she was able to bring with her.  Crisis one averted.  Unbeknownst to me, there were to be many (many) more crises on the road ahead.

Initially, I had planned on making pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting.  Delicious, safe, cream cheesy pumpkin bars….  Then, as I was flipping through my copy of Williams-Sonoma’s “Holiday Entertaining” (which, by the way is an AMAZING book), I saw it.  A recipe for Ginger Pumpkin Cheesecake.  I had to try it.  It looked too delicious to let it remain in the pages of a book, two-dimensional.  Looking back, leaving it as a pretty picture in a book may have been a better course of action.

The first step in making this cheesecake was making the crust, which consisted of crushed gingersnaps, crushed walnuts, a little sugar, and melted butter.  Easy peasy.  Except when you can’t find the base of your food processor (which you later remember is at your sister’s house).  I thought “No big deal, I’ll just crush the gingersnaps and walnuts by hand.  How hard could that be? How long could it possibly take?”   I grabbed a serving spoon planning to crush with the back of it, and headed into the living room to watch some Glee as I crushed.  The spoon could not have been less effective.  Instead I had to use a giant, heavy, mug which worked much better.  Even with the incredible crushing power of the mug, it took me an entire episode of Glee, PLUS half an episode of New Girl just to crush the gingersnaps.  I moved on to the walnuts, during which I finished New Girl and started Up All Night (which, as a side note, I’m not loving so far).  Finally, after an hour and 45 minutes, everything was crushed.  However, the baby was awake and I no longer had time to finish the cheesecake that day.  I covered the gingersnaps and walnuts, and headed off to change a diaper.

Flash forward to the next morning.  I was ready, I was excited, today was the day!  I would get that flipping cheesecake done if it killed me!  Things started out well.  The crust was mixed, patted into the pan, and baked.  I started on the filling, which was going swimmingly until I got to the pumpkin (that F-ing pumpkin).   The recipe called for either 26.5 oz or 830g of pumpkin puree.  Well, the can I had said that it was 29oz/822g.  So in ounces it was too much, but in grams too little.  After careful consideration, I just dumped the whole can in thinking I would “split the difference” even though that makes absolutely no sense.  Right after I’d mixed the pumpkin in, I looked at the directions again and realized it also said “3 ½ cups” of pumpkin.  So, probably I should have just used that measurement.  Too late.  Everything was ready to go.  I poured the cheesecake into the crust, put the pan into its water bath to bake, and sat back with my fingers crossed. 

I knew something was wrong the first time I peeked at the cake.  Its water bath was a very pumpkiny shade of orange.  Clearly, the cake was oozing out the bottom of the springform pan.  So, here’s my question:  the recipe says to wrap the pan in foil, which I did.  I assumed it had to do something with how the cake baked, but was it actually to keep the water from getting in?  Because IT DIDN’T SAY THAT.  Clearly, if I had known that was the purpose, I would have made more of an effort to make it water-tight.  Otherwise, I just have a shitty springform pan I guess.  I let the cake keep baking, although it was not cooking like I thought it should.  I left it in for an extra 25 minutes because it kept looking too soupy (too much pumpkin, or water seeping in the bottom? I’ll never know for sure).  Finally I took it out, confirmed that the bottom was soaked, and stuck it in the fridge praying that a miracle would occur.

This morning, I removed it from the fridge and it actually looked okay.  I thought that maybe it turned out after all. 

I poked the top with my finger: pretty solid.  I tried to unlatch the side of the pan and take it off.  That pulled the cake apart.  So I went around the side with a knife and tried again.  Not so pretty, my friends, BUT it still looked like a cheesecake, homely or not.  

Then, the true test.  I cut into it.  FAIL.  It was a smooshy mess. 

Noooooooo!  All that time… all that delicious cream cheese, WASTED!  I sort of want to cry when I remember how long crushing those gingersnaps took.  But, I vow to try this recipe again within the month.  And next time it will be better.  Because I’m making my mom help me.

PS My camera also ran out of batteries and I couldn't find the charger.  So I had to use a cell phone to take these pics.  Sigh.  October Madcap Challenge = Fail on Every Level.