Spook-tacular Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients:

For the Crust:
250g chocolate wafer crumbs
60g butter, melted

For the Filling:
720g cream cheese, softened (or you can use my home-made cream cheese recipe to prepare your own)
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
450g pumpkin purée (freshly-made or tinned)
2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

For the Topping:
500ml sour cream
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
50g chocolate, melted

To Decorate:
decorating icing, in various colours
black jelly beans
liquorice laces

Method:

In a bowl, combine the chocolate water crumbs and melted butter. Press the mixture into the base and part-way up the sides of a greased springform cake tin. Set aside, then beat the cream cheese and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly to combine after each addition. Now whisk in the pumpkin purée, along with the cornflour and pumpkin pie spice. Pour this mixture on top of the crust then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 170°C and bake for 1 hour.

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes. In the meantime, beat together all the ingredients for the topping until thoroughly combined. When the cake has cooled a little pour over the topping and spread until smooth. Return the cake to the oven and bake for a further 6 minutes.

When done, remove from the oven then carefully run a butter knife around the edge of the pan then set aside to cool to room temperature (or refrigerate over night). When the cheesecake is cold, remove the sides of the cake tin. Use the decorating icing to pipe small spider-web shapes all over the top then form spiders from black jelly beans, using lengths of liquorice as legs.

Cut into wedges and serve.

Find more Recipes for Halloween Here.