Thanksmas & Pumpkin Cheesecake

I apologize for the mini-hiatus, with moving into the new apartment and Thanksgiving, J and I have been really busy packing, unpacking, and baking.  Hopefully it won't be to long before I can share before & after pictures of the apartment.  In the meantime I have some small crafts and recipes to share with you!

Today I'm sharing with you my absolute favorite recipe for pumpkin cheesecake!  For the past couple of years I've made sure to bring this to our family Thanksmas festivities.  What's Thanksmas you ask?  Well, at Thanksgiving we get together with my mom's side of the family and we usually celebrate Thanksgiving the day after (aka Black Friday) so everyone has time to et together and we can miss the bad traffic by travelling on Thanksgiving.  Since we do not get together for Christmas we do a secret santa at our Thanksgiving.  One year someone called our get together Thanksmas because it is a combination of the two holidays and it has stuck ever since.  Thanksmas is my favorite holiday because I get to be with my family and I personally think it has the best food of any holiday.

One year I experimented with this cheesecake even though I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake.  Now, every year I make this for our Thanksmas and other holiday parties because everyone asks for it.  It is the only Paula Deen recipe I use consistently.  It is creamy, the crust is just the right thickness, and the recipe is pretty simple.

I follow the recipe here with a slight tweak.  I make sure to put my cheesecake in a water bath to prevent cracking.  If you have not done this before:

1. Cover the outside of your springform pan with tinfoil before or after you make the crust, but BEFORE you pour in the filling.
2. Find a pan that can fit your springform pan in it comfortably.
3. Boil water, you will need to fill the pan with water up to the top of the cheesecake in the springform pan (But not the top of the springform pan!). **Make sure to place the springform pan into the pan and into the oven BEFORE pouring the water (otherwise it will be hard to move into the fridge).
4. Cook at the same temperature and length of time that the recipe calls for.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this prior to our festivities, but this shows you how much we ate!

I highly suggest this recipe if you are a fan of pumpkin flavored desserts!!