Salted Caramel Cheesecake Pie with Gingersnap Crust
I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! I usually spend mine in Miami, but we switched things up a bit this year and decided to spend the holiday with close friends in Stuart in a beautiful condo on the beach. This is the view I woke up to each morning. Lucky me!
And here is my yummy gluten-free Thanksgiving plate!
I’ve been told you are not supposed to try out brand new recipes for holidays, events, or whenever a large number of people will be eating your food. For fear that the recipe will come out terrible wrong, it’s recommended to stick with tried and true recipes for parties. This is probably good advice, but I decided to go against this “rule” for Thanksgiving and try out a new cheesecake recipe. (Besides, if I were to have practiced making this in advance, I would have had a whole pie to myself! Dangerous…)
My mom has a delicious recipe for pomegranate glazed cheesecake, which I’ve made a few times in my springform pan. I found this recipe a while back from Joy the Baker and have been dying for a chance to make it, because I’m a sucker for anything with salted caramel. I adapted the recipe to be gluten-free.
This recipe calls for baking your cheesecake in a pie dish, which I had never done before. I was a bit nervous that I over-baked the cheesecake, but it ended up turning out just delicious and was a huge hit on Thanksgiving.
The recipe calls for a 9″ pie pan, but I used a 9.5″ pan, so my crust was slightly thinner but I thought it was still nicely balanced with the filling. The crust is made from gluten-free ginger snap cookies that have nice hints of spice to them. And I added lemon zest to the cheesecake filling, which lent a fresh flavor to the pie. The salted caramel topping is to die for and really brings this whole dish together.
If you’ve made cheesecake before, you know there are quite a few steps, and you have to allow yourself time to make this in advance to give the cheesecake enough time to cool down in the oven and the fridge. I made the pie two days before Thanksgiving, and the caramel the day before. Then before serving, you just sprinkle sea salt, slice and serve!
I found these gluten-free ginger snap cookies at the grocery store, which were nice and crunchy and perfect to make my gluten-free crust!
For the filling, you’ll need a table mixer or hand mixer to easily beat all of the ingredients together. Your eggs need to be at room temperature along with the cream cheese. (A nice trick to bring eggs quickly to room temperature is to place them in a bowl with warm water for about 10-15 minutes.)
The next part takes a little guesswork to know when the pie is done cooking. You can’t mess this up too badly but it make take some trial and error before you figure out what a “cooked” cheesecake looks like. Once you’ve finished cooking it, it sits to cool in the oven for another 45 minutes, and then cools completely in the fridge.
I made my caramel sauce and let that cool overnight as well, and then poured the cooled sauce over the cooled cheesecake and returned it to the fridge before I was ready to serve. Then sprinkle with sea salt and you’re ready to go! My first slice didn’t come out so pretty, but oh boy, mighty tasty!
Hugs, kisses & yummy dishes… xoxo
Lauren
Salted Caramel Cheesecake Pie with Ginger Snap Crust
- YIELDS Makes one 9" pie
-
Instructions
- Place two racks in the upper and bottom third of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. You’ll need a 9-inch pie plate and a 9×13-inch pan for boiling water.
- To make the crust: Place ginger snap cookies in the bowl of a food processor and grind to a fine crumb. (If you don’t have a food processor you can crumble cookies in a zip lock bag.)
- Once you’ve created a fine crumb, add brown sugar, salt, and butter. Toss together, moistening all of the ginger snap crumbs.
- Pour the mixture into a 9-inch pie plate and press with fingers until sides and bottom are evenly coated with crust.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool while you make the cheesecake filling.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
- Place a tea kettle of water on the stove top to boil. We’re going to add hot water to the 9×13-inch pan to place under the baking cheesecake.
- To make the cheesecake filling: In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together cream cheese and granulated sugar. Beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in salt and vanilla extract until well incorporated. Add eggs, beating one at a time between each addition. Once creamy and smooth, slowly beat in the cream, beating on medium high until creamy and luscious. Add lemon zest if using.
- Pour cheesecake mixture into the prepared cheesecake crust.
- Place 9×13-inch pan in the bottom shelf of the hot oven. Carefully pout in hot water, and fill to 1/2 full. Push into oven.
- Place cheesecake on the upper oven shelf. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until cheesecake is browned and puffed. When cheesecake is puffed and doesn’t have loose giggle in the center, turn oven off and use a towel to prop the oven open slightly. Let cheesecake rest for another 45 minutes in the cooling oven. Remove from the oven and cool completely, for at least 4 hours. Overnight is best.
- While the cheesecake cools, make the caramel so it can cool as well.
- To make the caramel, add sugar, water, and corn syrup to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring once or twice. Bring to a boil and allow to brown. Once sugar has browned to a medium amber color, remove from heat and immediately add heavy cream and butter. Mixture will boil and foam. Stir well. Add salt and stir well to incorporate. Caramel may seem thin… that’s ok. Place in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and cool in the fridge for at least 4 hours, overnight is best.
- Pour the cooled caramel over the cooled cheesecake, return to the refrigerator until ready to serve. Sprinkle with a dash of sea salt then slice and serve.
- Cheesecake will last for up to 4 days, well wrapped in the refrigerator.
[…] Salted Caramel Cheesecake Pie with Gingersnap Crust (hugsnkitchen.com) […]
[…] made this appetizer for Thanksgiving. Another brand new recipe, but figured anything with two cups of cheese couldn’t be bad. And I love spinach and […]