Chocolate-Crusted Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust:
9 oz (half package) Oreos, crushed (eat other half of package while cooking)
1/4 c. sugar
6 T. butter, melted

Pumpkin mixture:
1-1/2 c. canned pumpkin
1/2 c. brown sugar
3 eggs, slightly beaten
5 oz evaporated milk
1 t. vanilla

Cheese mixture:
1/2 c. sugar
1 T. cornstarch
1-1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves
salt (the recipe doesn’t say how much, and I don’t remember how much I used last year–maybe 1/2 t.?)
24 oz softened cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together the three crust ingredients. Press mixture firmly into the bottom of a greased 9×13-inch pan. Bake until crust is set, about 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool crust completely.

In a bowl, stir together the five pumpkin mixture ingredients. Set aside.

In the mixer, mix all the cheese mixture ingredients EXCEPT the cream cheese. When mixed, add the cheese and beat on high speed until smooth. Take out 1/4th of the cheese mixture and set it aside to be used two steps from now. [Note: I no longer do this last step. The taken-out cheese mixture never did what it was supposed to do, so I just stopped doing it, and it is just as good if not better; plus it is less fuss.]

With mixer running at low speed, add pumpkin mixture to the cheese mixture and mix until combined and smooth.

Pour pumpkin mixture into pan. Drop dollops of the reserved cheese mixture over the pumpkin mixture. Use a thin metal spatula or knife to gently pull the cheese dollops through the pumpkin to make swirls. [Note: This is the other part I no longer do: no reserved cheese mixture,  and so no dolloping, no frustrating attempts to “swirl” the unswirlable clumps.]

Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes, or until center of cheesecake is just set. Remove from oven and cool 30 minutes. Cover and chill for a few hours. Eat in handfuls directly from pan in fridge. Or, slice it into squares and serve it on plates, I guess, if that’s the way you want to do it.

11 thoughts on “Chocolate-Crusted Pumpkin Cheesecake

  1. Swistle

    I leave the filling in the Oreos. I think it makes the crust more melty in the mouth. Also, it would be such a pain in the butt to scrape all those middles out. If I DID want to scrape out middles, I’d put in more Oreos to compensate for the loss of filling volume.

    If you think you might like it better without the middles, I saw in our grocery store, in the baking section with the graham cracker pie crusts and the canned pie fillings, packages of chocolate wafer cookies. Their location implies to me that they’re to be crushed for pie crusts. I didn’t buy any, though, because they were about $3.50 for 9 ounces (I got the Oreos on sale for $2, and that’s for twice as big a pack). But I’ll bet they’d be good.

    Reply
  2. Doulala

    Oh Swistle, I really, really love you! I just posted about my love for all things pumpkin. Now you are combining Oreos (my other favorite food) with pumpkin?!?
    Please don’t ever take this post down. Please!

    Reply
  3. Hallie Fae

    My boyfriend wanted oreo pumpkin cheesecake for his birthday cake, I found your recipe, and it made me feel more confident about making this cheesecake and it being good. I made a different recipe, than yours…and it was really good. I would defiantly suggest trying a oreo pumpkin cheesecake.

    Reply
  4. Abigail

    Just made this and my cream cheese mixture was much more thick than my pumpkin/cheese mixture. It didn’t really swirl- just kind of got mixed in under the surface in big blobs. I’m sure it will still be yummy… Any thoughts what I did wrong?

    Reply
    1. Swistle Post author

      It always does that to me, too (and you’re right, it’ll still be yummy!)—I can’t figure out why. I finally stopped doing that step, and I just mix all the cream cheese mixture into the pumpkin mixture now, without holding some back.

      Reply

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