Cranberry Cheesecake Recipe

Cranberry Cheesecake is a holiday favorite! Best results you get from baking it from scratch as in our recipe. This cranberry topping just makes it extra special with a crunch from the crackers crust. Treat your loved ones and yourself with this amazing fall cranberry cheesecake for dessert.

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Cranberry Cheesecake for Christmas

The holidays are all about good food and great times. Are you planning a family gathering this Christmas season? Do you do a fancy Christmas ham, prime rib, roasted duck, or something simple like a roast chicken?

Do you also provide the desserts or do you ask your guests to bring a dessert? If you’ll want to show up and impress with a dessert, bring this amazing Cranberry Cheesecake! It’s a show stopper  for sure!

This cranberry cheesecake would also be perfect to bring to an office pot luck party.

How many servings does it make?

This huge cheesecake can serve 12 – 16 people depending on how big you sliced it.

Mix other fruits in

You can give this amazing cheesecake with cranberry topping a personal twist in mixing other fruits in. Fruit that goes well with the tartness of cranberries are apples, apricot, orange, pear, pumpkin, quince and tangerine.

Mix and cook some of these fruits into the cranberry jam topping for a more complex taste.

Tips and Tricks for your cheesecake with cranberries

Start with wrapping the springform pan in foil. Cheesecakes need a water bath to help bake the cheesecake evenly. We wrap the pan with heavy foil and place the entire pan into a larger baking pan with hot water. The springform pan needs to be watertight to keep the water out and the crust crisp.

Get a springform pan – obviously. A springform pan has removable sides that make it very easy to remove the cheesecake for serving. I used a large cake lifter to get the cheesecake off the pan base.

Use room temperature cream cheese. Let your cream cheese, and in this case Mascarpone cheese, come to room temperature before beating it. Soft cream cheese will whip up smoothly. If the cream cheese is too cold, you’ll end up with lumps and nobody likes a lumpy cheesecake.

Don’t over mix your batter. Cheesecake is supposed to be thick, not airy. If you end up adding too much air to the batter, the cheesecake will balloon up too much while baking and then fall when cooling. The result will be a cracked top.

Allow the cheesecake to cool overnight. You’ll pull the cheesecake out of the oven when it still has a slight jiggle in the center. It’ll seem undercoated, but it’s not. The cheesecake will keep cooking while it’s cooling. Refrigerating the cheesecake overnight will help it evenly solidify and be creamy for serving.

Bake ahead and freeze it. You think that Cheesecake Factory has fresh cheesecakes all day, every day? Think again. They freeze it and you can too. For this cheesecake, bake it, refrigerate it, then wrap it tightly and securely and freeze it up to three months. Thaw it covered in the fridge for a night and add the topping before serving. It’s so easy!

Here’s a few more cheesecakes that are perfect for the holiday!

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake
Strawberry Brownie Cheesecake
Chocolate Cheesecake with Praline Sauce

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Christmas Cranberry Cheesecake

This oppulent cheesecake with cranberries is simple yet elegant in taste. The perfect cake for the holidays.

Total Time 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

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Course Cake

Cuisine International

Servings 12 slices

Calories 502 kcal

Cook ModeScreen not going dark

Ingredients 

US Custom – Metric

For the Crust

• 2 cup crushed graham cracker crumbs
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• ¼ cup melted butter

For the Cheesecake

• 24 oz cream cheese full fat, 3×8 oz blocks
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp orange juice
• 1 Tbsp grated orange peel
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 3 eggs beaten

For the Cranberry Topping

• 3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• ¼ cup orange juice
• ½ cup chopped pecans toasted

Instructions 

For the Crust

• Combine the cookie crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Mix until the mixture is like wet sand.

  Now press the crumbs into a 9" Springform pan lined with wax paper.
• Bake at 325° F (160° C) for 6 minutes. Then set aside to cool.

For the Filling

• Beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add the orange juice and orange peel along with the vanilla and cinnamon. Gradually add in the beaten eggs and mix until smooth. Pour over the crust.
• Bake at 325 F for 45 – 50 minutes. The center should be set, but still jiggly when moved. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to release the edge. Cover and refrigerate over night.

For the Cranberry Topping

• Toast and cool your pecans.
• In a large saucepan, add the cranberries, sugar, and water and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes stirring constantly. Whisk together the cornstarch and orange juice and add to the cranberry mixture. Return to a boil and stir for 2 minutes until thickened.
• Transfer to a bowl and cool completely. Stir in the toasted pecans.
• Spoon the cranberry sauce over the cheesecake and serve.

Equipment

9" Springform

Wax Paper

Nutrition

Serving: 1Slice | Calories: 502kcal | Carbohydrates: 56g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 29g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 9g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 108mg | Sodium: 325mg | Potassium: 175mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 43g | Vitamin A: 975IU | Vitamin C: 8mg | Calcium: 83mg | Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.

Keyword Cheesecake, Christmas, Winter

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Susan Queck

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