Pumpkin Cheesecake

Unfortunately work does not leave me much time to be active on my little blog :(
But I really wanted to share a sort of Halloween-themed recipe with you. I came up with this Pumpkin Cheesecake and I love how it turned out: a deep hue of orange, rich and incredibly fragrant! Enjoy!

You will need a 18 cm / 7 inch springform.

For the cheesecake base: 

• 150g (5.3 oz) all-purpose flour
• 20g (0.7 oz)sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 100g (3.5 oz) cold butter
• 2 tbsp. cold water

For the cheesecake filling:

•  300g (11 oz) hokkaido pumpkin (or canned pumpkin puree)
• 450g  (16 oz) cream cheese
• 100g (3.5 oz) muscovado sugar or simple brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. each ground cinnamon, clove, cardamom, coriander seeds, ginger, tonka bean
• 1 tbst. lemon juice
• 3 eggs

1. Wash, deseed the pumpkin, cut the flesh into wedges and together with half a cup of water place them into an oven-proof dish. Bake them at 170°C / 338F for about 45 minutes until the wedges are cooked soft.

2. Knead the flour, sugar, salt, butter and cold water until you get a firm and smooth dough. Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Line your springform with baking parchment. Then take three quarters of the dough and roll it out until it matches your springform and press the base into the bottom of the springform. To bake the base blind, cover it with baking parchment and fill dried beans or lentils into the springform.
Roll out the rest of the dough and cut out shapes to your liking. Place them on a baking tray.
Bake the cookies and the base at 170°C / 338 F for about 15 mintues, then remove the cookies to let them cool and also remove the lentils in their parchment paper and bake the "naked" base for another 10 minutes until slightly golden.

3. Blend the soft pumpkin wedges until very smooth and remove any chunks that might be left. Add the cream cheese, brown sugar, spices and lemon juice and stir well. Add the eggs and give it another stir. Pour into the springform on top of the pre-baked base. Bake at 150°C / 300F for about 45 minutes. Let cool completely.

4. Dust the cut-out cookies with icing sugar and use them to decorate the cake.