Butternut squash cheesecake

I've had it on my to do list since a few years to try and make a pumpkin cheesecake: that's finally done! I love to eat pumpkin in the fall, especially in desserts. I've baked in the past pumpkin cake, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread... and I always used the "muscat" pumpkin, which is one of the common pumpkins you find in grocery stores and that is easy to cook and tastes very good.

This time I decided to change and use the butternut squash variety instead, which has a nuttier and sweeter taste than the muscat pumpkin. For this cheesecake, I used gingersnap cookies instead of the usual digestive biscuits or graham crackers and mixed them with pecan nuts. Adding some winter spices - like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves - to the butternut squash turned this cake into a wonderful matching of the base with the filling along the lines of sweet, nutty and spicy.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Recipe: Butternut squash cheesecake (24 cm form)

Base
350 g gingersnaps (or similar cookies), crushed
150 g melted butter
1.2 dl chopped pecan nuts

Filling
700 g cream cheese, at room T
2 tbsp cornflour
2.5 dl sugar
3 eggs
400 g (fresh) butternut squash purée*
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Mix crushed gingersnaps, melted butter and chopped pecan nuts in a bowl. Transfer to a 24 cm-springform. Flatten the dough on the bottom and on the sides of the form. Place in the fridge.

In a bowl beat cream cheese, sugar and cornflour until soft. Add eggs one by one, mixing in between each one of them. Add butternut squash purée and spices, mix. Transfer the batter onto the cake base, even out the surface.

Bake 15 min at 225 C. Then lower the temperature to 175 C and bake for another 55-60 min. Let the cake cool down at the room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight) before serving.

*Butternut squash purée:
Bake butternut squash in the oven on parchment paper until soft. Then peel it and mix it until obtaining a homogenous purée.
You can of course replace the butternut squash with a pumpkin!