Pumpkin Cheesecake

15 Reviews
ADD YOUR REVIEW
Becky Luigart-Stayner
Yield
16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)
December 2000
RECIPE BY Cooking Light

Cooking Light fans rave about this rich, creamy pumpkin cheesecake with a vanilla wafer crust that has only 256 calories per slice and less than 10 grams of fat.

Ingredients

  • Crust:
  • 56 reduced-fat vanilla wafers (about 8 ounces)
  • 1 tablespoon butter or stick margarine, melted
  • Cooking spray
  • Filling:
  • 3 (8-ounce) blocks fat-free cream cheese, softened
  • 2 (8-ounce) blocks 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Dash of allspice
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin

Nutritional Information

  • Calories 256
  • Caloriesfromfat 34%
  • Fat 9.8g
  • Satfat 5.3g
  • Monofat 2.9g
  • Polyfat 0.5g
  • Protein 11.4g
  • Carbohydrate 29.3g
  • Fiber 1.4g
  • Cholesterol 86mg
  • Iron 1.2mg
  • Sodium 479mg
  • Calcium 172mg

How to Make It

Step 1

Preheat oven to 400°.

Step 2

To prepare crust, place wafers in a food processor; pulse 2 to 3 times or until finely ground. Add butter; pulse 10 times or until mixture resembles coarse meal. Firmly press mixture into bottom of a 9-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes; cool on a wire rack.

Step 3

Reduce oven temperature to 325°.

Step 4

To prepare filling, beat cheeses with a mixer at high speed until smooth. Add the granulated sugar and next 8 ingredients (granulated sugar through vanilla), beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add pumpkin; beat well.

Step 5

Pour cheese mixture into prepared crust; bake at 325° for 1 1/2 hours or until almost set. (Cheesecake is done when the center barely moves when pan is touched.) Remove cheesecake from oven; run a knife around outside edge. Cool to room temperature; cover and chill at least 8 hours.

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Ratings & Reviews

amymeeussen's Review

reptilenthusias
December 01, 2008
Wierd. That is all I can think of to describe this recipe. I had high hopes when I made it, but it ended up tasting very cream cheesy, and the pumpkin just added a weird edge to it. I will not make this again.

ashleyt1987's Review

Shgoodwin
December 09, 2013
I'm not going to lie, I made this for Thanksgiving so I made it partially with full fat cream cheese and partially with low fat cream cheese. It really turned out great and creamy! One issue I had was I had to add a lot more butter to make the crust hold together. 2 TBSP is really wishful thinking and I knew that going into it.

malice32's Review

paintdiva
December 05, 2012
I made this for Thanksgiving this year and the cake portion was delicious--so rich and creamy you would never know it's a light recipe! The only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars is because the crust in the recipe is quite dry and doesn't hold up for leftovers. It would be worth it to substitute a richer, butterier crust. But, the flavor of the cheesecake is amazing so I will definitely be making this again!

paintdiva's Review

Caroline
September 27, 2012
N/A

freddieflounder's Review

ashleyt1987
November 20, 2011
I made this over the weekend, and I think with some modifications it will be even better. I'm going to make it for Thanksgiving, so I'll add a little more sugar, double the spices (which I had done just with the cinnamon), and maybe use a little less cream cheese. But it's really good. I made a graham cracker crust for it from a Paula Deen recipe, which went really nicely with it. Just want to add, it tastes even better half a day and then a full day later. REALLY delicious, in the end. I'm back! I made it again, this time beat everything for longer and doubled or tripled all spices, threw in a wee bit more sugar. It was phenomenal. Nobody knew it was a "light" recipe, it was light and fluffy, flavorful, and a highlight of Thanksgiving. highly recommend.

TheBaums's Review

malice32
November 25, 2010
This recipe was great. Crust was a little dry -- I would add more butter or margarine to it (increase to at least 2 or 3 tbsp) and maybe use gingersnaps instead of nilla wafers next time. Would also double the amount of spices to add more flavor. Not a strong pumpkin flavor, but still delicious! Overall, could not tell that this was a "light" cheesecake recipe at all.

JessicaLuu's Review

amymeeussen
October 10, 2010
This really wasn't awesome. I love pumpkin cheesecake, and this just didn't do it for me. There wasn't enough pumpkin flavor or really enough of any flavor. It had a good texture, and I didn't feel sick after my piece like I do after full fat cheesecake, but I wouldn't make this again mainly because it was too expensive to be so mediocre. Maybe cheesecake just isn't one of those things you can lighten up.

mrmacrae73's Review

SKrafft
November 07, 2009
After reading all reviews, I made a few slight modifications. To add more pumpkin flavor, I included 1/8 tsp of pumpkin spice. I am not a big fan of super sweet anything, so I found the amount of sugar to be just enough for me. If you like super sweet then I recommend following the advice of the other reviews and add a little more. The crust did try to burn at 8 minutes so I took it out early. It came out great!

reptilenthusias's Review

JessicaLuu
December 11, 2008
For the last 2 years I have made a fullfat pumpkin cheesecake for our Christmas Tree Decorating party and people loved it - but it is hard to justify all that fat. This year I decided that virtually all the desserts that I made for the party would be from Cooking Light, so decided to give this recipe a try. It got rave reviews from our party attendees, and people were very surprised that it contained less fat. I was surprised to see so many mediocre reviews for this recipe, as we thought it was quite good. I definitely thought that it was sweet enough, although I agree that I would like a bit more spice, so will up that next time. Recipe is very easy to follow; comes together very quickly. A good choice for a healthier and delicious pumpkin cheesecake.

SKrafft's Review

mrmacrae73
December 02, 2008
Good base but needed more flavor. Also made with 1 less cream cheese and a little added sugar. Next time would also use more spices.