Ingredients
Method
- Cook the pumpkin puree in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, for 6-8 minutes, until it darkens slightly and pulls away from the sides of the pan. You want about 130 g left. Cool completely.
- Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Mix the graham crumbs, 40 g brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt, and melted butter until it looks like wet sand. Press firmly into the base and 1 inch up the sides of a parchment-lined 9-inch springform pan. Bake 10 minutes, then cool.
- Melt the 15 g butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the diced apples, 40 g brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and lemon juice. Cook 5-6 minutes until just tender. Sprinkle over the 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch and stir 30 seconds until the juices thicken. Cool completely.
- Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour, oats, 50 g brown sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of salt with your fingertips until you have irregular clumps. Chill until needed.
- Beat the cream cheese with the granulated and brown sugars on low for 2 minutes, until completely smooth. Add the sour cream, cooled reduced pumpkin, 2 tbsp cornstarch, vanilla, spices, and salt. Mix until just combined.
- Add the eggs one at a time on the lowest speed, stopping as soon as each disappears. Beating air into the batter at this stage is what causes cracks later.
- Pour the batter over the cooled crust. Set an empty sheet pan on the rack below to catch any leaks. Bake 40 minutes. The edges will be set and the center will still be very loose; that's correct.
- Scatter the cooled apples evenly over the surface, then the crumble on top. Return to the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the center has only a slight wobble.
- Turn the oven off, prop the door open with a wooden spoon, and leave the cheesecake inside 1 hour. Then cool to room temperature.
- Refrigerate at least 6 hours, ideally overnight. Run a spatula around the edge before releasing the pan, and warm your knife between slices.
Notes
Reduce the pumpkin puree before it goes in the batter. Canned pumpkin is roughly 90 percent water; cooking 200 g down to 130 g concentrates the flavor and removes the moisture that would thin the batter and soften the set. This is why the filling stays creamy rather than dense.
Bake in two stages. Cooked apples are dense and wet, and raw cheesecake batter is thick liquid, so apples laid on at the start will sink no matter how gently you place them. Forty minutes sets the surface enough to hold them. It also keeps the crumble crisp, since a crumble sitting on wet batter for 70 minutes steams rather than bakes.
Use cold butter for the crumble, rubbed in with your fingertips. Melted butter makes a paste that bakes into a slab.
This tastes of warm spice more than pumpkin. That's deliberate. For a pumpkin-forward cheesecake you would need around 400 g of puree and would get a denser, wetter texture.
Cool it slowly with the oven off and the door propped open. Going straight from a 325 degree oven into room air makes the surface contract faster than the center, which is what cracks it.
All dairy and eggs must be at room temperature. Cold cream cheese leaves lumps, and beating hard enough to remove them puts air into the batter.
Use tart apples such as Granny Smith, Braeburn, or Honeycrisp. Sweet varieties collapse and make the layer too sweet.
Keeps 5 days covered in the refrigerator. Freezes up to 2 months, though the crumble softens; freeze before adding the crumble if making well ahead.