Paula Deen's Pumpkin Cheesecake

"It's Thanksgivin', y'all, and I'm starvin'."














So goes Sarah Gibson's favorite Paula Deen sayin'. I love Paula - her 8-sticks of butter, fryin' thangs in oooohl', random shots of her fat dogs, sacked out on the floor. I looked around at several different cheesecake recipes before putting a general pole out on facebook, and my friend Dave said, "Do you doubt Paula Deen?"














I'm not sure who I forgot about her, but choosing her recipe seemed obvious. Here's why: Paula is not a fancy cook. She makes fairly basic (but beautiful) food that almost anyone could repeat, and she does it with stuff that you can easily find at your local grocery store. Since it was my first cheesecake, I wanted to keep it simple, and I know Paula would take the same approach.














I also emailed my Uncle Kim for suggestions, one of which I couldn't follow. He suggested putting a pan with simmering water on the wrack beneath the cheesecake while it breaks, to prevent cracking. Our (tiny) oven only has one wrack so I couldn't do that, and it did in fact crack.












(I'm glad you can actually see the color in this one - it's really lovely).

But that didn't really bother me. I cut the first piece along the big crack (about 9:00 in this picture), and just let the rest of it go. I did follow his suggestion to leave the cheesecake in the oven for an hour after it was "done," as the oven cooled.













I was overwhelmingly pleased with this cheesecake, especially since I was so nervous the the whole thing would fall apart. Now I want to try making other cheesecake, but I really need an excuse. It's taking us forever to eat this one, and it's not the kind of thing I can just set in my office for others to snack on (though it's a good argument for why we should get a mini-fridge for our office...something Matthew and I are discussing). Maybe I'll get invited somewhere and bring a cheesecake.














Paula Deen's Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

• 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
  
• 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For crust:

In medium bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

For filling:

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Add flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined.

Pour into crust. Spread out evenly and place oven for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours.