Full question
I made the Pumpkin Cheesecake using my home grown pumpkin which I puréed. Watch out because you do need to let the puree drain off excess water. The cheesecake had a very mild and not very sweet flavour and the colour did not speak pumpkin, more New York cheesecake. It tasted a little eggy and because of the odd flavour I feel that 6 eggs maybe too much? Also it really needs spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar instead of white. The timings also seemed out because when it baked it split on the top. This is the first time a recipe has turned out so disappointing. Why?
Our answer
Nigella's Pumpkin Cheesecake (from FEAST) is a baked cheesecake that is combination of cream cheese and pumpkin puree. This type of cheesecake is, in essence, a baked custard and usually you need one egg to each 150g of cheesecake batter to thicken and set the cheesecake. The total weight of the pumpkin and cream cheese is 1.175kg, so we do not think that 6 eggs is too many for this filling. However it does sound as if the cheesecake was slightly over baked, hence the split in the top.
The cheesecake is baked in a water bath and this is quite a gentle method of cooking, but ovens do vary and it is worth checking the cheesecake before the end of the cooking time. The cheesecake should be set on top and still have a slight wobble in the centre as it will continue to set as it cools. A large cheesecake is likely to take at least 1 hour and 15 minutes to bake and you could start checking at this point, and then every 10 minutes after that until the cheesecake is baked as described above. Nigella's Pumpkin Cheesecake is intended to have more of a pure pumpkin flavour, rather than becoming a Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake, but spices can certainly be added to suit personal tastes.
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