For Christmas 2014, I decided to forgo my usual pumpkin pie and instead go for a more ambitious dessert - a pumpkin cheesecake. I haven't made cheesecake since my day-long attempt at the Frankies Spuntino Ricotta Cheesecake in 2013, and I haven't made a pumpkin cheesecake since 2005 (and that was a joint effort with an expert baker friend).
But feeling confident in my baking abilities, I decided to spend Dec. 23rd making the Cook's Illustrated Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake, which with its CI recommendations of removing excess moisture from canned pumpkin, spiced graham cracker crust, and make-in-advance directions seemed like the way to go.
Unfortunately, the initial confidence I had for making this cheesecake quickly fell apart as I was actually preparing it. First, the new springform pan I had ordered didn't arrive by the 23rd and I was worried about using my slightly leaky and uneven pans at home.
Second, while starting to follow the recipe, I realized that I was supposed to bake the cheesecake in a water bath in a roasting pan - a roasting pan I did not have. I tried to see if some of my other baking dishes would work, but none would leave room between the outside of the springform pan and the outer baking dish. I decided I had no other choice but to improvise, so reading other approaches online, I decided to put the boiling water in a baking dish a row below the springform pan in the oven to keep the oven steamy and hopefully avoid unevenly baking the cheesecake.
Third, I didn't have an instant read thermometer so couldn't fully tell when the cheesecake was baked and may have overbaked it - oh well. After an hour and a half or so, I decided to turn off the oven, and leave the door slightly ajar with a wooden spatula to let the cool and drier air more gradually reach the cheesecake to avoid it collapsing. I thought that step may take the place of cooling the cheesecake for 45 minutes in the hot water bath outside of the oven.

And for the final act, as the actually beautiful cheesecake was cooling, enough liquid had escaped the pan and into the foil coating I had put on the outside of the pan, so the outside of the pan was quite slippery. As such, I dropped the baked cheesecake on the floor and only about 1/2 of it stayed in the pan and survived so speak. I smoothed out the remaining cheesecake with a knife and decided to serve cheesecake "bars" instead.
The cheesecake bars were wonderful, but definitely still a disappointment to have gone through all of that stress and effort for a less-than-perfect result.
So...next year?