As you are preparing for Thanksgiving, I’m sure you throwing around ideas of what to have for dessert and the standard apple pie or pumpkin pie comes to mind. We’ve even been known to do a little early Christmas baking and have cookies for our Thanksgiving dessert. How about breaking from the norm a little bit and doing pumpkin cheesecake bites instead? They are single serving making them easy for a dessert table and on your waistline on a day full of eating.
These cheesecake bites have a delicious gingersnap crust made from crushing ginger thins and combining with a little sugar and butter. They add just the right extra hint of spice to this sweet dessert. Yummy!
Ingredients for Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites:
Crust
30 ginger thin cookies
3 Tbsp sugar
5 Tbsp butter, melted
Filling
2 8oz bars of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup agave syrup
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
3 1/2 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Let’s Make It:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffins cups with paper or foil cupcake liners.
2) Put cookies and sugar into the food processor and pulse until the cookies resemble bread crumbs. Reserve 1 Tbsp of crumbs.
3) Add butter and pulse until combined.
4) Press 3/4 Tbsp of crumb mixture into the bottom of 12 muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
5) In the food processor, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add in all remaining ingredients {except reserved crumb mixture} and process for 1-2 minutes until combined.
6) Pour mixture into muffin cups on top of prepared crust. Fill each cup about 3/4 full.
7) Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until set. Cool completely and then top with whipped cream. Sprinkle with reserved cookie crumb mixture.
What will be on your dessert table this Thanksgiving? Do you usually do pies and cakes or stick to more single serve style desserts?
This post will shared at the list of fabulous parties found here.
- 30 ginger thin cookies
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 5 Tbsp butter, melted
- 2 8oz bars of cream cheese, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup agave syrup
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
- 3½ Tbsp flour
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12 muffins cups with paper or foil cupcake liners.
- Put cookies and sugar into the food processor and pulse until the cookies resemble bread crumbs. Reserve 1 Tbsp of crumbs.
- Add butter and pulse until combined.
- Press ¾ Tbsp of crumb mixture into the bottom of 12 muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
- In the food processor, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add in all remaining ingredients and process for 1-2 minutes until combined.
- Pour mixture into muffin cups on top of prepared crust. Fill each cup about ¾ full.
- Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until set. Cool completely and then top with whipped cream. Sprinkle with reserved cookie crumb mixture.
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yum! that looks awesome. I love those flavors together… pinning.
Thanks! I like the little bit of spice the gingerbread part adds.
It ends up that I will be hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year- for the very first time ever. I pretty much have the main meal plan down, but I’ve been tossed on the desserts. I think this recipe is a winner!
Oh, this would be great for your Thanksgiving dessert. I hope you give it a try.
Love the idea of these for thanksgiving. Will try soon. Thanks for sharing. Pin.
Thanks! These will definitely be making an appearance on our Thanksgiving dessert table.
These look so delicious! Thanks for sharing them today on the Daily Blog Boost! Pinning! 🙂
~ Brooke ~
Thanks so much! I am excited to make these for Thanksgiving.
Under the first recipe it says you need “crust” but it doesn’t in the second. Is a pie crust one of the remaining ingredients you throw into the food processor or or you just referring to the crust you make with the cookies?
The crust referred into the recipe is the one made from the cookies, sugar and butter. You combine those items in the food processor and then press into the bottom of the muffin cups. Bake them for 10 minutes to create the crust of the cheesecake. Sorry that wasn’t clear.
loved this recipe and your pictures i am coveting! seriously! so i pinned this the day you posted and it seems to be going nuts. 1500 repins and 140 likes.! eeek
I can’t wait to make these for Thanksgiving! Did you make them in normal cupcake tins or mini?
These were normal sized cupcake tins
Just looking at these makes me hungry! YUM!
Yum! Does the small size equal portion control…or just more portions? 😉 I’m not sure I could stop with one.
those look great- and i like your cupcake papers!
We usually do pies. This year, I’m making a pecan pie and my friend is bringing a pumpkin pie. I’m sure there will be other goodies as well.
Any make ahead ideas? how long do these have to cool? how many in each batch?
I made mine several days ahead of time and they were 100% fine. Just keep them in an airtight container in the fridge. I would say maybe 2-3 days max {mine were 2 days ahead of time}. I cooled mine in the fridge so they took about 2 hours. The recipes makes 12.
Yet another yummy, and well pictured recipe!
I love the idea of pumpkin and gingerbread together! Also love mini desserts that you don’t need a for for, great job!
Love love love, pumpkins. Those look so good. I have pinned it to try this weekend.
These look Oh So Good!!!! I might have to give them a try this year!
Those look amazing. We usually do a pumpkin pie and a caramel pie for Thanksgiving.
I have never had the pumpkin version of these mini cheesecakes, but I love that you can just pop one in your mouth and satisfy your sweet tooth.
Pumpkin cheesecake bites, can I just say yummmm!!!!!!These little desserts sound delicious and look adorable. They may be making an appearance this Thanksgiving.
Thinking about making these for Christmas
I can’t stress enough how much I love pumpkin recipes!!! Now I’m hungry and considering going to the grocery store, and buying them out of pumpkin puree!
Those look amazing!
oh yes please, these sounds amazing I love cheesecake! totally pinning this!
Whoa, these look amazing!
These look scrumptious! I need to try these. Usually I like to try something different each Thanksgiving for desserts. My uncle usually brings traditional pies and I do something new and fun.
Those look too good, I don’t think my diet would survive these tasty bites! Pinning to make for the family!
those look scrumptious! So going to Pin this!
I like the idea of bite sized treats. That way you can enjoy the deliciousness and still watch the calories.
Looks so yummy! And doesn’t seem super hard to make.. I’ll definitely give them a try 🙂
YUM! These look absolutely amazing!!!
Those are so cute and perfectly bite sized! I love this! My son would love to take a bite of this right now! HE loves anything pumpkin!
Oh that looks so yummy! I never heard of this, I’ll have to give it a try!
I made these and they look delicious (they are baking in the oven as I type). One note- my store did not carry the “thin” gingersnaps, but had a little thicker ones. I would cut the crust recipe in half if you plan to do only 12. If you are using anything but the THINS, one batch of crust is enough to do 24 muffins with the the standard filling recipe.
Good to note! Would you mind if I add this as a reader note to the recipe? Hope you loved them.
just made them & they are awesome. putting them “officially” in my recipe file. 🙂 thanks!
Is there something else I can use besides agave syrup?
You could just use all sugar instead of the agave.