Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake for Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Several blog challenges this month have had pumpkin as their theme, but We Should Cocoa asked, of course, for recipes including both pumpkin and chocolate. I am going to friends' for dinner tonight and offered to bring dessert, so I decided that some sort of chocolate and pumpkin cake or pudding would be perfect. I love cheesecake, and thought these flavours would work well together, so simply hunted around on the internet until I found some recipes to inspire me.

The ones that particularly stood out were this Hershey's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cheesecake and this Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Cheesecake from Moms Who Think. I ended up adapting the recipes and throwing in a few tweaks of my own; does that entitle me to call this an original Caroline Makes recipe?

Hershey's Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake

1 cup Graham Cracker or other biscuit crumbs (eg digestive)

1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa Powder (you can actually buy this from Asda in the UK)

1/2 cup melted butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 handfuls of Hershey's Kisses (exact number doesn't matter but I used about half a standard-sized packet)

600g cream cheese

1 cup granulated sugar

1 can (425g) solid packed pumpkin - I bought this from Amazon but have been told Waitrose sell it, and of course it's quite easy to get hold of in the US

4 eggs

1/2 cup condensed milk

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

(you could also replace these last two with pumpkin pie spice)

Preheat oven to 180C/ 160 C fan. Grease a 9-inch springform cake tin.

Mix the Graham Cracker or biscuit crumbs with the cocoa powder and sugar. Melt the butter in the microwave and mix in to the biscuits to make thick crumbs.

Press onto the bottom of the tin. As you can see, this is a case of "do as I say, not as I do".... I forgot to add the cocoa powder. But it would definitely work in this recipe and give a lovely chocolate base.

Take one bag of Hershey's Kisses and try not to eat too many as you unwrap...

Dot the Hershey's Kisses all over the cheesecake base.

Beat the cheese and sugar until smooth

 

Take one can of pumpkin - I bought this from Amazon. Beat in to the mixture.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Then beat in the flour and whatever spices you are using.

Carefully pour the mixture into the tin around the Hershey's kisses so as not to dislodge them from their position, then pour the rest of the mixture over the top, retaining about 1 cup of the pumpkin and cheese mixture in your mixing bowl.

Melt a handful of Hershey's Kisses in the microwave and mix in to the remaining pumpkin mixture, which will turn chocolate in colour. Carefully pour this on top of your cheesecake and use a spoon to swirl; you'll get a pattern like this below.

Bake in the oven for an hour then leave to cool. A crack did appear in the surface of mine but you could hide this with whipped cream; it is worth keeping an eye on the cheesecake while it is cooking though.

I love the pattern on the top!

Unfortunately I can't show any more pictures or even comment on what it tastes like at this stage as I am taking it to my friends' for dinner tonight, but needed to write the blog post now in order to enter various blogging challenges before the deadline! Rest assured that I will come back to this post and tell you what this actually tastes like!

Update: Well, we had the cheesecake after dinner tonight and I was a little unsure if I would like the taste, and hadn't even taken it out of the tin at this stage! But I needn't have worried:

It sliced really well and while the Hershey's Kisses didn't hold their shape, you can see where the chocolate is inside:

It tasted absolutely delicious, really light and creamy and the pumpkin taste wasn't overpowering at all. I think this is one of the nicest cheesecakes I've made, and even my boyfriend - who looked quite worried when I mentioned the pumpkin - really liked it!

I have already missed the deadline for We Should Cocoa, the brainchild of Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Tea Pot, which is the challenge I actually wanted to make this for in the first place, but Nat from Hungry Hinny, who is this month's guest host, has said she will still add this to the roundup - thanks Nat!

I am also sending this to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and Laura from Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is Halloween, and this would be the perfect dessert to come back to after an evening of trick or treating.

Pumpkins are most definitely in season so I am sending this to Simple And In Season, an event created by Ren of Fabulicious Food and this month hosted by Franglais Kitchen.

Franglais Kitchen is also the host of this month's One Ingredient Challenge, created by How To Cook Good Food, where the ingredient is - helpfully - also pumpkin!
 

Halloween Fiesta, hosted by Cooks Joy, is welcoming recipes using pumpkin or squash this month so I am entering this recipe.

Cooks Joy is also hosting a Diwali Bash where the theme is also pumpkin:

I am also sending this to United Bakes of America hosted by Cupcake Crazy Gem.

I am updating this to send it to Cooking Around the World, as their theme this month (for which they accept old posts) is American food.