Hey guys! Yesterday was Thanksgiving as well as National Homemade Cake Day. I was planning on making a dessert for my family for Thanksgiving this year, so I decided to go the cake route (sort of) and make a cheesecake! Pumpkin and apple pies are classics that I usually make for Thanksgiving, but this year I wanted to try something different. This recipe is one of the easiest cheesecake recipes I’ve ever found, and it cooks way faster than most others!

To start your cheesecake, you need to make the graham cracker crust. For this, I used the same recipe as my pumpkin torte that I shared back in October, but only used ~75% of each ingredient, since the pan for this dish is a bit smaller than the pan for that dish. To make the crust, blend together 1 and 1/2 cups of crushed graham crackers, 6 tablespoons of sugar, and 11 tablespoons of melted butter. When mixed together, your crust should look like the picture to the right.

The next step to making this cheesecake is pressing the crust mixture into the actual pan. I use a pie pan for this recipe, but you can use any pan type you like. However, if you can, try to use a pan that has a 9″ diameter and is 1 and 1/4″ deep (otherwise the crust won’t perfectly fit the pan). When pressing the crust mixture into the pan, make sure you cover the bottom and the sides of the pan with the crust. If the sides aren’t covered with crust, the cheesecake will burn. When all of your crust mixture is pressed into the pan, you can make your cheesecake filling!

This filling only has four ingredients, which makes this recipe so easy! To start the filling, mix together 16 ounces of cream cheese (softened to room temperature) and 2/3 cup of sugar. When this mixture is smooth (not a lot of noticeable chunks) add in 2 eggs (also warmed to room temperature) and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Continue to mix on a medium-low speed until the eggs and vanilla are incorporated. I had to pause mixing a few times to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure all of the ingredients were evenly mixed. Try not to have too many chunks in your mixture (but don’t worry about some being in there).

The last step of this cheesecake is baking it! Pour your filling into the crust (it should all fit) and make sure it’s evenly spread to the edges of the pan. You should bake this cheesecake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes. When the cheesecake is ready to be taken out of the oven, the middle of the cheesecake will still look underdone, but don’t fret. As long as the internal temperature of the cheesecake (taken 1 inch from the edge of the pan) is between 165-170 degrees Fahrenheit, the cheesecake is cooked. Mine took 25 minutes this time around, but times can vary based on your oven and the type of pan you use.

Let the cheesecake cool on a cooling rack when it’s done baking, and keep it refrigerated after it cools completely. To the left, you can see how my cheesecake looked right when I took it out of the oven (before cooling and finishing setting).

This recipe is really easy and doesn’t take very long. I think the cheesecake turned out wonderfully, and I hope some of you will try this dessert yourselves! Thanks for reading!