Easy and Traditional Pumpkin Cheesecake

A simple upgrade to a delicious traditional recipe.

Thanksgiving 2025! I tried this recipe for the first time. Well, calling it a recipe is generous, at the time it was just me throwing ingredients together and wishing it luck. But the result was so delicious, with the absolutely perfect cheesecake texture that I’ve gone back and created the recipe to share.

Before I share the recipe, I just want to share the mistake I made. I didn’t prepare myself for how long this would take. I’m a night owl, I do my best work and am most creative at night. However, I started this cheesecake at 9:30PM, thinking it would take 1 hour, and it was a 3-hour project.

BEFORE you start, allow yourself 2.5-3 hours for this creation. AND set your ingredients out to come to room temperature.

Let’s start with the ingredients. I’m crunchy even when it comes to desserts, so I will always recommend the cleanest brands and products. In baking, I feel it makes a world of difference. I’m going to include the brands in my list, just because I don’t always trust other products to not have added junk that may change the way it bakes.

INGREDIENTS:

Cheesecake Filling

3 blocks of Organic Valley Cream Cheese

1/4 C Organic Valley Sour Cream

3 Pasture-Raised Large Eggs

1 C Organic Brown Sugar

1 C Organic Canned Pumpkin

3 T Arrow Root Flour (Can sub with 1T cornstarch)

1T Vanilla Extract

1T Sweet Leaf English Toffee

2T Maple Syrup

1t Pumpkin Pie Spice

1t Cinnamon

Pinch of Salt

Crust Ingredients:

Ok, I pre-bought a graham cracker crust and used it for convenience. If you want to make your own:

1 1/2 C Graham Cracker crumbs

1/4 C Granulated Sugar

1/2t Cinnamon

6T Melted butter (salted)

Maple Whipped Cream:

1 C Carton Heavy Cream or Whipping Cream (Cold)

2T Maple Syrup

3T Powdered Sugar

INSTRUCTIONS:
In order to get that creamy smooth texture, it makes a world of difference to start with room temperature ingredients. Set everything out for an hour.

While your ingredients are coming to room temperature, you can start the crust:

1. Either bake your premade crust in the pan at 350°F for 8 min
2. Or combine your crust ingredients and bake in a pan
3. Grease your springform pan (I use butter around the edges).
4. Allow to cool- if you have used premade, then remove from the pan, and press into the base of a springform pan.

For the Cheesecake:

Keep the oven at 350°F.

1. Combine cream cheese, sour cream, and brown sugar in a mixer on medium/low speed. Don’t overmix
2. Add 3 eggs, one at a time (room temp)
3. Incorporate maple syrup, vanilla extract, sweet drops, and pumpkin. Add arrowroot flour (or cornstarch), 1T at a time (3T arrowroot flour, or 1T cornstarch). Mix on low until smooth.
4. Pour mixture into springform pan (on top of the crust)
5. Take the springform pan, wrap the base in foil (until the buckle of the spring form is covered). This prevents leaking in/out while baking.

Assembly:

I’ll link my reel for those who are more visual

Up until now, it’s been pretty basic cooking. The cooking process is where a little more attention to detail comes into play.

1. Find a shallow pan that your springform pan will fit inside (I used a 9×9 square pan)
2. JUST CHECKING IN- at this point, you have your cheesecake on top of the crust all in a springform pan… which is wrapped around about the bottom 1/2 in aluminum foil. That whole creation is now sitting inside of a shallow pan
   • OR GRAB THIS PAN AND SILICONE WRAP COMBO
3. Add boiling water to the shallow pan AROUND the springform pan (don’t get the cheesecake wet). This is why your pan is wrapped in foil, so this water doesn’t seep into the springform pan. Use enough water to cover up to 1/2 of the side of the cheesecake pan. This amount will vary based on the size of your pans
4. Now that you have a water bath around your cheesecake, it’s time for the first cook
5. Place in the oven for 1 hour at 350°F

After 1 hour of baking

1. TURN OFF THE OVEN. Keep door closed, and allow the cheesecake to stay in the over for 1 more hour as the oven is off (it will still have the heat and be cooling down from the 350 temp).
2. Now has been a total of 2 hours cooking. REMOVE the cheesecake from the oven, allow it to cool room temp for 1 hour.
3. Refrigerate cheesecake overnight
4. Remove from fridge 1hr or more before enjoying

Once the temp is cold, you can freeze this well, or serve within a few days.

WHIPPED CREAM:

1. Combine heavy cream, sugar, and maple syrup. Whip on medium/low for 3-5 until it becomes a fluffy whipped cream.

When I made mine, I mentioned I started very late at night. I kept my on the counter for less than an hour, but when I put it in the fridge, I used my foil and made a tent around the top of it as it cooled. The texture was still great! But I would recommend cooling on the counter after the oven time, because it did get a lot of moisture on in cooling in the fridge, which can change the texture; nobody wants a soggy cheesecake bottom!

I made this late on a Tuesday night and served Thursday for Thanksgiving 2025. It was one of my favorite desserts I’ve made! Served with the homemade whipped cream (this seriously is soooo easy and the texture is 100x better than a can or fake whipped cream from a store).

NOTES:

Need Pan Recommendations? This is a great simple pan, and comes with a silicone sleeve to replace the foil wrap in the water bath/

The Sweet Leaf English Toffee drops are something I came upon in Whole Foods a few years ago, and have become one of my essentials for baking. I love adding these to chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, orange toffee sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls and more! I recommend grabbing a bottle and using 1T per baking recipe like you would with vanilla extract. I usually use both the vanilla extract and English toffee drops in baking.

Another note, this cheesecake was nice and firm! It traveled well; however, I kept it in the springform until right before serving because I had a long commute with it and did not want it to start slouching.

Remove a few hours before eating 1-3 hours to enjoy a perfect texture.

Served 12 people.

GREAT ADDITIONS:

• Shaved chocolate
• Caramel drizzle
• Decorative spice icon

**Thanks for enjoying my blog. I love sharing what i’m creating family traditions around. My blog posts do contain affiliate links. Thank you for supporting the links and clicking/purchasing. All these pennies add up to help my family fund our adoption process and homeschool venture.