Pumpkin Cheesecake

I made pumpkin cheesecake for a bake off today at the halloween party at work. It went over super well and I won a $50 certificate for some bbq place (ick). so I traded with someone who won a $20 certificate for starbucks (yum). The recipe is below. If I ever do it again, I would make more crust, and come up with a better way to crush the gingersnaps. The cake was so extremely rich and huge it serves a lot more than 10. The real problem was slicing it thin enough. A pretty slice was enough to kill a small creature from creamcheese overdose. It really really did take 4 packets of cream cheese. I thought that was a typo at first.

For serving, I made some whipped cream and put pecans on top. It was sort of overcooked, but people liked it.

Ingredients
CRUST:
- 1.5 cup crushed ginger snaps
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted

FILLING:
- 2 pounds cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
- 15 ounces pumpkin, packed solid
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons bourbon
- 5 eggs

Container: 9" springform pan
Servings: 10
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 1.5 hours

Directions
Crust
* Preheat oven to 350F. Generously butter inside of pan.
* In a small bowl, combine gingersnap crumbs and melted butter. Press this mixture into the bottom of the springform pan and around the sides if you have enough. Bake for 10 minutes.
* Remove crust from oven and allow to cool completely while you run around trying to get the rest of it together.

Pie
* Mix flour and spices, and set aside.
* Beat cream cheese in a large bowl on medium speed until smooth.
* Add sugar to cream cheese and beat an additional 1 minute on medium speed.
* Blend pumpkin, vanilla and bourbon into the flour mixture.
* When pumpkin mixture is completely blended, mix in to cream cheese mixture.
* Beat in eggs, one at a time, on low speed. Beat just enough to blend each egg.
* Pour pumpkin mixture into completely cooled crust.
* Fill a 9x13 pan half full of water, and place this pan on the bottom rack of the oven. The moisture should help prevent cracking of the cheesecake.
* Place the cheesecake on the middle rack and back for 1 hour and 35 minutes. Do not open the oven door during the first hour of baking.
* After baking, turn oven off, open door and leave cheesecake in oven for 30 minutes to cool slowly.
* Then remove cheesecake to a wire rack and cool for another 30 minutes.
* Cover and chill for a long time (4 hours - overnight) in the refrigerator.