Pumpkin cheesecake

I think growing up in Hong Kong has educated my taste buds to the joy of the sweet and the savoury. BBQ buns with the sweet dough and the yummy BBQ filling, sour plums, Dried cuttlefish with pine sugar and chilli, and the Hong Kong version of chicken pie with an eggy, crumbly, sweet flaky pastry. I can't say however that I have ever warmed to tuna donut or curry donut, but my dad did and he says they are quite tasty.

I am also extraordinarily fond of pumpkin. My boys love it too but the rest of my family recoils in horror. I love pumpkin pie with its egg tart like quality and from an English perspective the clashing combination of sweet and pumpkin which shouldn't be. So when I saw ricotta reduced to a normal price and knowing that I had a butternut squash in the fridge, I thought maple syrup pumpkin cheesecake, doesn't everyone?

Maple Syrup Pumpkin Cheesecake

Base

about 8 digestives crushed
50 g of butter melted

Mix the melted butter into the digestives and squash into your loose bottom spring form tin. I am making a half size cheesecake as my kitchen is tiny, and they also look so sweet small. My tin is 6 1/2 inches across. You could always double the mixture for a larger cheesecake. Put this in the fridge to chill.

Filling

100g Philadelphia cream cheese
100g Ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Maple syrup
75 g Sugar
75g of boiled and drained pumpkin cooled

I just liquidize the whole lot and carefully pour onto your cooled base. I know it looks like soup but trust me it will come good.
Wrap the out side of the tin in tin foil and bake in a water bath that comes halfway up the side for about 1 1/2 hours . The cheese cake is cooked when its firm to the touch . The pumpkin gives this a firmer set. Yum!