Pumpkin Grand Marnier Cheesecake

It's been quite some time since I posted a non-Daring Bakers recipe, but I promise it has been worth the wait.  This cheesecake goes way back in my family.  My mom found the original recipe in a magazine, I believe, but the clipping has been long since lost and the recipe typed and shared and re-typed again.



Some of my fondest memories revolve around slices of this cheesecake, and for good reason: it was the only dessert my sister and I were ever allowed to have for breakfast.  My parents entertained quite a lot, and though I usually chattered everyone's ear off until I was sent away went to bed pretty early, when fall rolled around I didn't mind as much since I knew I would wake up to a slice of leftover cheesecake!  My mom used to rationalize it by talking about all the calcium-containing cream cheese, nourishing eggs, and vitamin-filled pumpkin and orange juice in it. Somehow she forgot all about the brown sugar, cookie crumb crust, and generous splashes of liqueur in both the cake and topping...



...which take it from just a run-of-the-mill cheesecake to something really amazing.   Orange and pumpkin are a wonderful combination anyway, but three kinds of orange (juice, zest, and liqueur) combined with the smooth cream cheese and tangy sour-cream topping make this a very special fall dessert indeed.

The recipe calls for pumpkin puree (I like butternut) - the better quality your squash is, the better your final cheesecake will be.   Likewise, instead of using plain store-bought butter cookies for the crust, I made my own spiced whole-wheat graham crackers and crumbled them up instead - a marked improvement that adds a lot of flavor. Along with the booze, of course.



Pumpkin Grand Marnier Cheesecake
My Mom's Recipe

1 cup sweet biscuit crumbs (preferably homemade, I made Heidi's graham cracker recipe and had plenty of extra crumbs left over for my next cheesecake)
60 gr. butter, melted

500 gr. (1 lb 2 oz) cream cheese
¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
5 eggs
2 cups cold pumpkin puree (make your own, it's easy!)
¼ cup Grand Marnier
2 tbsp. orange zest
¼ cup freshly-squeezed and strained orange juice

300 gr. (10.5 oz) sour cream
¼ cup Grand Marnier
¼ cup powdered sugar

Combine biscuit crumbs and butter. Press over base of 23 cm. springform pan; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 (350) degrees. Beat cream cheese and brown sugar until smooth in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in pumpkin, Grand Marnier, zest, and juice, scraping down the sides to ensure everything is mixed evenly.

Pour pumpkin mixture through a sieve over the base, pressing lightly to make sure all the liquid is drained through but discarding any chunks left in the sieve. Bake for 50 minutes or until set around the edge. Combine all topping ingredients. Quickly remove cheesecake from oven, spread with topping and continue baking for 10 more minutes. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight. Decorate with whipped cream and cinnamon just before serving.

A Pair of Fall Festivals, Part 2: Pumpkin Party

My mom tells me that 35 30.5 years ago, when she first moved to Switzerland, pumpkins were all but impossible to find - she had to grow her own plants in my grandmother's garden!  My, how times have changed.  On a day in September that was so warm it felt more like summer than fall, we drove 45 minutes north of Zurich to the tiny village of Berg am Irchel and the Baur family farm holding their annual pumpkin festival.  With over 150 varieties grown at this farm alone and every grocery store and seasonal menu full of them, it's hard to imagine autumn without pumpkins.

The first order of business when we arrived - lunch, of course!  There was more than just pumpkins on the menu - choices included burgers and sausages made of the farm's own veal, but it seemed inappropriate not to eat pumpkins at a pumpkin festival.  I went with a hearty bowl of the spiced soup.



After lunch, we started at the very beginning and walked out to the pumpkin patch behind the farm.







A highlight was the Calabash Tunnel, where light-green gourds hung from thin stalks entwined around wire mesh. I could hardly believe that the stalks didn't break under the heavy weight, but they were much tougher than they looked. When dried, the hollow fruit is often used to make rattles.



Back near the farmhouse, there was more pumpkin fun to be found.  A competition to guess how many pumpkins in the container...



...educational displays of the different families of pumpkin...



...a tasting station, where you could crunch on small pieces of raw pumpkin and observe with your senses the differences between Acorn, Marble, Butternut, and Jack O'Lantern varieties...



...and meet lots of grinning faces along the way!



Finally, we headed over to the market area and began the process of deciding which of the multitude of varieties to take home.  It was very, very difficult.  Even the cheat sheet the farm provided was little help - too many choices and too many fun names, in nearly as many languages as there are pumpkins! Yukigeshou, Lungha di Napoli, Crioula Pataka, or Citrouille de Touraine, anyone?







In addition to normal food-pumpkins, there were crates and boxes of small funky zierkürbisse, decorative pumpkins not meant for eating.





A few other products rounded out the little market area - pumpkin seeds, cider, and grape juice from this year's harvest.



We packed our purchased pumpkins into the car and took a last turn around the farm, enjoying the sun and the festive atmosphere.





I was especially happy to have bought a few of the farm's butternut squashes, whose rich color and aromatic flavor boasted a much better quality than the dry and unripe specimens at the grocery store.  Now the only question left was what I should make out of them... stay tuned for even more pumpkin coming up soon!