How do you make pumpkin cheesecake even better? Add bacon!
Everybody understands that once Fall begins to rear its head, all the delicious pumpkin spice-flavored treats come out to play. If you want a sweet and savory treat that is head-and-shoulders above fun-sized candy bars, try making these Bacon Pumpkin Cheesecake bites for your boys and ghouls this Halloween.
Fortunately for you, and for any Halloween visitors you might be feeding, these bacon pumpkin cheesecake bites are almost as easy to make as they are to eat. All you really need is the basic ingredients, which are listed below, a good mixer, and a muffin tin with liners to make these delicious snacks.
As Giada mentions, ginger snaps are the preferred cookies to use for the crust; if you only have graham crackers for your crust, we recommend incorporating a little bit of the cinnamon and the ground ginger in order to re-create some of that spice that you’d be otherwise lacking in your crust. The prep is about as straightforward as it gets, so as long as you remember to keep the butter at a low enough temperature when melting it, and you break up your crust into small enough pieces, you should be good to go.
The other benefit of Giada’s recipe, in addition to the fact that it’s delicious and easy-to-make is that nothing is super time sensitive. So whether you are making them for a dessert, for a party, or for a late-night snack when you’re up watching horror movies on Halloween night, you don’t have to worry about constantly keeping an eye on your ingredients while you are cooking, so toss on an episode of Ghost Hunters while you’re making these to get yourself in the mood. The only paranormal activity you’ll experience is how fast these treats disappear!
Ingredients:
Crust
- 20 gingersnap cookies, finely crushed to yield 1 1/4 cups
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter
Filling:
- 2 strips thick-cut bacon, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
- One 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon fine salt
