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Gingersnap Cheesecake

Gingersnap crust topped with creamy, white, dense, sweet cheesecake. Top with a dollop of homemade whipped cream and fresh fruit...chocolate sauce optional but highly encouraged.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings 1 Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust:

  • 6 tbsp butter melted
  • 1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies
  • 1/4 cup sugar

Filling:

  • 4 or 5 8-oz packages cream cheese
  • 1 3/4 cups sugar
  • 3 tb flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp grated orange rind
  • 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 5 eggs
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream

Instructions

Crust:

  • Put crushed gingersnap cookies in mixing bowl. Add sugar.
  • Add melted butter.
  • Stir or blend together with your hands.
  • Press into the pie plate or springform pan (if you want crust only on bottom make sure to grease sides of pan)
  • Pre-bake the crust for 8-10 min in a preheated 350 degree oven.

Filling:

  • Preheat oven to 550 degrees. (Yes, that's correct!) Put a pot of hot water on to boil.
  • Place cream cheese in large mixing bowl. Beat at low speed until packets are combined well.
  • Add sugar gradually, beat 2-3 minutes.
  • Add remaining ingredients in order listed. (Add eggs one at a time)
  • When smooth, pour into precooked crust pan.
  • Place in pre-heated oven. Add a container (pie pan or whatever shallow pan that is oven safe) of boiling water into the oven.
  • Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 200 degrees. Cook for 50 minutes. DO NOT PEEK AT IT!
  • Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in oven (door closed) for thirty minutes.
  • Open oven door and let cool an additional thirty minutes in oven.
  • Finally, pull out and cool until room temperature (could take several hours) and then put in refrigerator for as long as possible (overnight is best).

Serve:

  • Top with homemade whipped cream, chocolate sauce, or berries. Or if you are like me and believe that if you're going to eat dessert it might as well taste excessively delicious use all three :)
  • Cheers!

Notes

Note: If your kitchen is warm go ahead and pull cheesecake out to counter and let cool. If it's on the chiller side open the oven door and sit it on the oven door (just dont let your kids/pets/husband's touch it) and let it cool in there. The idea here is to SLOWLY cool the cake, otherwise it will crack in the middle.