Fat Don't Wrinkle Pumpkin Cheesecake, A Recipe and Memoire

Pumpkin Cheesecake - lite

POINTS® Value: 4
Servings: 16
Preparation Time: 20 min (maybe more, IDK)
Cooking Time: 90 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy (in my opinion)
Course: dessert

Preheat oven to 350

Ingredients for Crust:
2 cup(s) General Mills Fiber One Caramel Delight Cereal, crushed into crumbs for the crust
1/2 cup(s) Promise Buttery spread (softened or melted, I bet melted would work better)

Cheesecake Batter:
3 large egg(s)
1/4 cup(s) fat-free skim milk (if needed)
16 oz Kraft Philadelphia Free Fat-Free Cream Cheese
8 oz Kraft Philadelphia Neufchatel Cream Cheese

1 cup fat free sour cream

1/2 cup(s) McNeil Nutritionals SPLENDA No Calorie Sweetener (YOU will need to play with the quantity here, cuz I guessed at the amount)
1 tsp vanilla extract

3 serving(s) Libby's Easy Pumpkin Pie Mix, 1/3 C

Topping:
3 serving(s) Smucker's Sugar Free Caramel Sundae Syrup, 2 tbsp = a serving
2 oz cashews

Instructions

Crust: Crush the cereal in food processor or blender until fine. Add melted margarine and stir with fork until crumbles form. Empty into spring-form pan sprayed with no-stick spray. Press into bottom of the pan to form crust.

Batter: Beat softened cream cheese with eggs until creamy. Add ff sour cream and splenda and beat. Add milk until the consistency is smooth. Add vanilla and beat again. Pour 2/3 of the batter into waiting pan. Add pumpkin to the remaining batter and beat until smooth and creamy. Pour on top of the first layer of batter. Swirl a knife through the batter without hitting the crust on the bottom.

Bake at 350 for 90 minutes or until center is set. Top will split and crack a bit.

NOTE: I actually ended up shutting the oven off when I was sure the cheesecake was 97% baked through and went to bed. It was perfect in the morning. (My kitchen gets pretty chilly at night, so I wasn't worried. I would certainly recommend starting this process during the day so you don't poop out like I did.)

I heated and drizzled the caramel on top of decoratively arranged nuts on top for decoration. You certainly don't need to do that. The cheesecake would be that much "healthier" without the nuts and caramel.I also cook by taste and feel. Quantities of Splenda, milk, pumpkin can be adjusted. You could also use walnuts, almonds, pecans, whatever...but change it in a tracker for true points.

Folks - I entered this into the WW recipe builder, so to the best of my knowledge all quantities and point values are correct. I tend to cook, as I mentioned, by feel and tastr as well as appearance. I looked at several existing recipes and then went out on my own for this concoction. Really - I just adopt and adapt other people's recipes to my own way of eating and sense of taste.

My family ate this here cheesecake like it was going out of style. Really! They would not have known it was a skinnier version if we hadn't told them. When my baby bro questioned me about the "real" ingredients, I really had to work to convince him that he at a skinny version of the goods. (That was rather empowering, I must say!)