Looking for a light and fluffy pumpkin cheesecake? This is all you need, Asian inspired cheesecake, it is more a cake than cheese.
Well, this is the thing…I did not know how to call this cheesecake like dessert…looks like a cake, but has cream cheese in it, and it resembles the cotton soft cheesecake with all the rights of a pumpkin pie…color and spice…this cake/cheesecake is so light, cottony and melt in your mouth. And you know what? It tastes much, much better next day after in the refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours.
So if you like all pumpkin stuff, get ready for a treat…this is much lighter than your conventional cheesecake and I must tell you that you will not be content with one slice…
Ingredients:
- 50 granulated sugar
- 3 eggs separated
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 10 g unsalted butter
- 80 g cream cheese
- 50 g milk
- 50 g pumpkin puree (I used Trader Joe’s)
- 20 g cake flour or pastry flour
- 15 g cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin spice (I used Trader Joe’s)
- Pinch salt
Method:
Line a 6 inch pan with parchment paper. To make it easy for the parchment paper to stick on the baking pan, coat the pan with a little butter before. If using a spring-form pan, wrap the bottom of the pan with a couple of sheets of aluminum foil to prevent the water into the pan when baking.
Preheat the oven at 315F (or lower at 300F…see method)
Sift the flour, cornstarch, salt and pumpkin spice.
In a double boiler place the cream cheese, butter and milk and pumpkin puree. Make sure that all the ingredients are melted and even. Remove from the heat and let it cool a bit. Add egg yolk one at the time, mixing after each addition. Fold in the flour mixture and mix well.
Make the meringue by whisking egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.
Take ⅓ of the meringue and fold into the cheese/pumpkin mixture, once incorporated fold in another ⅓ of meringue, and finally the last ⅓ of it. Fold gently preventing the air bubbles from breaking.
Pour the mixture into the prepared round cake pan.
Bake the cheesecake in a water bath for 30 minutes at 315F and then lower the temperature to 300 and bake for another 45 minutes or until set and golden brown. You might want to decrease the starting temperature to 300F to avoid the cake to “crack” and then to 285F.
Leave the cake to cool down in the oven with the oven door open, about ⅛ hour, this might prevent the cake to shrink due to the drastic change in temperature.
Refrigerate the cake before serving.
Did you know that pumpkin is a fruit? Because pumpkin like all the other squashes develop from a flower therefore according to botanist pumpkin as a fruit with seeds in it.
