Recipe: Dismembered Gingerbread Man Cheesecake

I found a recipe which describes how to create a Gingerbread House Demolition Cheesecake. I decided to try my hand at it with a different type of cheesecake, using the basis of the recipe as a starting point. Instead of using a gingerbread house, I bought a large gingerbread man at the store to decorate.

I forgot to take a "before" but remembered to take a dismembered picture.

After letting him live for a night, with a heavy heart, I dismembered him into small pieces. Then I ground it up in a small Cuisinart food processor, edible decorations and all. You want it to be finely chopped to get rid of all the candy chunks. Sadly I don't have a normal size food processor so the one I had was lacking in power. While it had no problem grinding up the gingerbread and the peppermint candies, the jelly candies were too tiny for my already small blades. It thinned them out a bit forcing me to take a pair of scissors and cut them up into small pieces. I think if they had been normal sized jelly candies (such as Chuckles) then the food processor would have had an easier time taking care of them. Not sure if a normal food processor would have the might to take care of them.

Candies and all!

To make the crust, I took about a cup and a half of the crumbs/powder and mixed that with a third cup of melted butter. When I make cheesecakes, I only coat the bottom of the pan and leave the sides bare. If you want to coat the sides, I'd likely increase it to 2 and a quarter cups of the crumbs and half a cup of melted butter.

You can see the tiny bits of peppermints and jellies.

Then I decided to spruce up the crust a bit more. I used Trader Joe's Cinnamon & Sugar Grinder to coat the crust with some extra spices. Then I made a small bit of glaze icing and drizzled that over the bottom. I baked it at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Take it out and let it cool.

Mmmm!

As for the cheesecake, I decide to whip together a vanilla spice cheesecake to complement the gingerbread crust:
Three 8 oz cream cheese packages, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 scant tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature, lightly beat

Mix the cream cheese until it is smooth, then mix in the sugar. I actually had some homemade vanilla sugar laying around so I used that for an extra taste. Once the sugar is blended completely with the cream cheese, I mixed in the pumpkin pie spice. Honestly, only reason I used pumpkin pie spice is because I homemade a cup of it and had a bit leftover and figured it would work here. Then mix in the vanilla extra. I also homemade my own vanilla extract which is why I have no problem using a large amount, if a tablespoon is too much you can use 2 teaspoons of it. Finally slowly mix in the eggs. It's important to not incorporate too much air into the mixture so mix on slow until well blended. If you mix on high then the cheesecake will come out too puffed up with air, almost doubled in size. If you feel the mixture is too thick, you can always add in a splash of milk to thin it out a bit.

Pour the mixture over the cooled gingerbread crust and you're ready to bake. You can bake it in a water bath (wrap you pan in foil and submerge in an inch of boiling water while you bake), place it on a baking sheet, straight on the rack, use bake even strips, wrap a damp dish towel around it, etc. Normally I'd bake in a water bath but today I just went with it on a baking sheet. Bake for about 35 minutes or until there is only an inch of jiggle in the middle. Don't bake until it is completely set as that is too long, the cheesecake will continue to set after you've pulled it out of the oven so you want it to be still firm but jiggly in the center.

I stupidly forgot to take an after picture. I planned to take a picture of a slice yet it was gone before I really could. Guess that's good, huh?

After I let it cool, time to decorate! There are many different ways to decorate:
- Sprinkled some of the remaining gingerbread crumbs (this is what I did)
-Dress it like a gingerbread man with more jelly candies and icing
-Whipped cream
-Thin coating of vanilla pudding