Since it is officially the holiday season, I sometimes feel compelled to make stuff with cranberries or pumpkin. I mean it's everywhere! So these are an attempt at something a little different for me - cheesecake. And using real cranberries but canned pumpkin, well because I'm not that into pumpkin to go from scratch!
Start with the cranberries to make a super yummy cranberry sauce. I had this on toast on it's own, so even if you don't like cheesecake, make the cranberry sauce!
Cranberry Sauce (adapted from Design Love Fest)
6 ounces of fresh cranberries
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of orange juice
1 and 1/2 Tbl vanilla
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Heat all in a sauce pan until cranberries pop and sauce thickens. Let cool.
But if you do make the cheesecakes, make them with a gingersnap crust. It's super easy, crunch up about 3/4 bag of gingersnaps and add 1 stick of melted butter to the gingersnap crumbs. Spoon about 1 tablespoonful into cupcake liners, and press it down well. Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes.
Once they are cooled, peel the liners off them if you want to show off the look of the cheesecakes. (which kinda remind me of Reeses peanut butter cups). You can also chill them in the fridge.
I mixed some of them up too, and did 1/2 cranberry and 1/2 pumpkin.
I like seeing layers in foods, especially different colors (I know weird right?) so wanted to see what this would look/taste like. Actually very tasty! Neither the cranberry nor pumpkin are overwhelming so it went well together, especially with the gingersnap crust.
And of course I couldn't just leave them plain so I dressed them up a little for the holidays. I've seen these simple reindeer cookies from Meet the Dubiens and thought I could use that idea to cute'n these up.
Hope everyone had an awesome turkey day! AND if you have any leftover cranberry sauce or canned pumpkin maybe make some of these little reindeer cups.
Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
