I apparently only have one springform pan after all. I seem to recall thinking of getting two but only getting one. I did find the chopping blade of my food processor to chop up the gingersnaps with. It was inside my crockpot. Apparently I thought it was a safe place, given my penchant for klutziness and trouble with sharp objects. I also got to use a small stepstool I'd acquired that, despite being only a rugged plastic, is supposed to hold my weight. It did so, yay! (I had to look for my hand mixer, which had been placed in the cabinet above my refrigerator.) Obviously, I don't use kitchen tools very often. But it worked out pretty well. I got the crust together, put it in the pan, and put it in the fridge to cool for 20 minutes. Then I mixed together the ingredients for the filling, putting the oven on to preheat to the right temperature about halfway through that, and both crust and oven were ready when I finished the filling. So it should come out about 10:15 (yes, I started at 8 pm instead of watching BBT, but I recorded it). It went into the oven at 9. It calls for caramel to be put on the top after it cools a bit and then refrigerated at least four hours, then putting some more crushed gingersnaps on the top right before serving. But I'm going to take it to work in the morning and dietary is going to refrigerate it, and I don't want the gingersnaps getting soggy, so I'll forego that, maybe put some pecans, which are in the crust and inside the bottom as well already. That will also clue anyone with nut allergies to avoid the cheesecake. This has been fun. Still, I haven't started the cleanup yet. :) In case this sounds good to you, you can find
the recipe at Ree Drummond's website. Funny, I'm not a 'foodie', and didn't know of her existence till a food show came here to Lexington just a few weeks ago. When I looked for a pumpkin cheesecake with gingersnap crust, this one came up and sounded intriguing. I'll let you know how it goes. Since I've never made this recipe before AND it's for a dessert contest, I skipped the step at her recommendation where you drizzle caramel on top of the crust before baking. Some people report doing so leads to a rock-hard crust, and she says she thinks it has to do with variations in different gingersnap and caramel formulations. I used the same brand of cookies and ice cream topping she did, but didn't want to take a chance of botching this. (I did break down and use Kroger cream cheese instead of Philadelphia....the recipe calls for four packages of cream cheese per cheesecake and I thought I'd be making two, so I didn't want to totally blow my budget on this.)
