Holiday Eggnog Cheesecake (Recipe)

For Xmas this year we went over to my uncle and aunt’s place. While he cooked the majority of the dinner, mum and I brought dessert.   I made an eggnog cheesecake for my contribution, and while I wasn’t sure how it would turn out – it was delicious!  The original recipe is from All Recipes.com, but I altered it a tiny bit (below). Mum was going to make something else, but ended up buying a Yule Log (from Co-op or Safeway) instead because after all of the work we’ve been doing, she was in no mood to cook.

The two desserts

Ingredients

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tablespoons Splenda sweetener
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup Splenda sweetener
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Light eggnog
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons white rum
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl combine graham cracker crumbs, 2 tablespoons sweetener and butter. Press into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
5. In a food processor combine cream cheese, sweetener , flour and eggnog; process until smooth. Blend in eggs, rum and nutmeg. Pour mixture into cooled crust.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
7. Reduce heat to 250 and bake for 45 minutes, or until center of cake is barely firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and immediately loosen cake from rim. Let cake cool completely before removing the rim.
8. (Actually, since mum had me checking on it every 5 minutes because she was paranoid, I actually baked it for 45 minutes at 250 and then another 20 minutes at 200.  I don’t think that I needed to do this, and probably checking it constantly contributed to it cracking so much…)
9. Make a star-shaped template and dust the top with a mixture of cinnamon, sweetener, and nutmeg.

The two desserts

My uncle gave me one of his older cameras (which I used for the photo at top). It’s still new to me, so I have some work to do adjusting the settings etc. The bottom photo I used my iPhone for.