Set a course that I don't know

[sovay]

The dominant note of this week has been massive sleeplessness, but yesterday morning the plumber finally came to fix our kitchen sink which had been broken for the last five months and this evening we celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents. rushthatspeaks and I baked the sixteenth-century pumpkin cheesecake he had been wanting to try for the last two years; it came out much more like a pudding than either of us expected and much less of it was left by the end of the night. nineweaving brought a garland of chocolate turkeys from Burdick's. My father made green beans in a hot dressing of cider vinegar and bacon and my mother's decision not to boil and peel all the chestnuts for the stuffing herself was universally supported. For the first time that anyone can remember, the turkey was done ahead of schedule, but there was no shortage of morsels to be mooched by little cats as soon as I got home. Personally I am planning on a turkey terrific, later. spatch took a picture of me driving impressionistically after dark.

Comments

[sovay]

YOU ARE A GEM! Many thanks!!

You're welcome!

We actually let it cool about half the time in the oven, the other half of the time on a rack on the island in my parents' kitchen, and it unmolded from the springform just fine.

[asakiyume]

Good to know--we're having the tall one and his girlfriend over this Sunday. Maybe I'll try this for that occasion!

[rushthatspeaks]

Having now made the thing, I would add to the recipe notes:
-- canned pumpkin is plentiful this time of year, but one can of course roast a whole one and puree the pulp if need be
-- it says you can use cream cheese instead of mascarpone, but I officially Have Doubts, and the cream cheese would have to be room temperature or even slightly heated to have any chance of being beaten in well enough
-- the batter is going to seem ludicrously liquid, as is the cake not just until baking but until well into the cooling in a still-hot oven phase, but it did, in fact, set
-- we had it in a springform cheesecake pan with a piece of foil spread on the oven rack underneath it, and the foil turns out to be crucial, though, interestingly, the few leaks didn't turn out to be butter at all, but rather almost pure pumpkin juice
-- upon storing it in the fridge after the first time eating it, it has softened up a bit, very much to the consistency of pudding, but it hasn't separated, and the flavor remains the same

[asakiyume]

Thank you very much! I especially appreciate the cream cheese note and the aluminum foil note.

... I don't really know how mascarpone differs from cream cheese: my instinct would be to use the latter because that's what I've used in the past (I don't think I've ever actually used mascarpone, though I've seen it sitting next to the cream cheese in the supermarket), but do they taste very different? If I'm going to be doing myself out of the true experience by using cream cheese, I'll use the mascarpone.

[rushthatspeaks]

Cream cheese is more assertive and a bit more sour. Mascarpone is almost liquid and very mild indeed, though the basic notes are pretty much the same as cream cheese.

[asakiyume]

*nodding*

I think I'll try it with mascarpone, as you did.

[asakiyume]

I made this, and I wanted you both to know it came out ~ wonderfully ~

I cooked it in a large ceramic bowl, and it turned out less soft than yours did, I think: somewhere between a cheesecake consistency and a very moist cake-cake consistency, truly wonderful. Although I'd said I'd use mascarpone, in the end I used cream cheese because I didn't see mascarpone in the supermarket (what they had sitting in very similar packaging next to the cream cheese was neufchatel). Anyway, truly lovely treat--thank you!!

[rushthatspeaks]

Oh, lovely! So glad it came out well, and I'm pleased and interested to know the results of using cream cheese.