Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie - avg 3lb

My crew and I stopped trying to choose between pumpkin pie and cheesecake, so we built a pumpkin cheesecake pie that doesn't ask you to. A layer of from-scratch cheesecake sits underneath a spiced pumpkin filling, and both live inside the one thing we won't compromise on: a crust made from 100% butter, never shortening, mixed and shaped by hand in our small bakery in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

This is a Take & Bake pie - frozen and unbaked, with the crust and fillings ready to go straight into your own oven. Treat it the way you'd treat a good frozen pizza: no thawing, no assembly, just oven time on the day you plan to serve it. It comes out golden with the cheesecake layer holding its shape underneath the pumpkin.

It's built for the Thanksgiving table, but there's no reason to save this holiday dessert for one day a year - the pumpkin filling carries cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice, so it reads as a fall dessert just as easily as a holiday one. Let it cool fully before slicing; the cheesecake layer needs that rest to set properly. This is a traditional, buttery indulgence built with wheat flour, cream cheese, and eggs, so it's not suited for keto, paleo, or carnivore diets - it's meant to be the classic splurge on the table, not a diet-friendly swap.

Keep the pie frozen until you're ready to bake it. Once baked, refrigerate any leftover slices.

Ingredients: Pumpkin, Cream Cheese (pasteurized milk and cream, cheese culture, salt, stabilizers (carob bean and/or xanthan and/or guar gums)), Sugar, Unbleached All Purpose Flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron (reduced), thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Evaporated Milk (milk, dipotassium phosphate, carrageenan, vitamin D3), Eggs, Unsalted Butter (pasteurized cream, natural flavoring), Water, Pure Vanilla Extract (water, alcohol (35%), sugar, vanilla bean extractives), Himalayan Sea Salt, Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, and Allspice. Contains: Milk, Egg, Wheat.

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Common Questions

How does this pie compare to a conventional grocery-store pumpkin pie?
The biggest structural difference is the crust: this one is made with 100% butter and no shortening at all, while most mass-produced pumpkin pies use a shortening or shortening-butter blend because it's cheaper and more shelf-stable to work with. The cheesecake layer, caramel, and lemon curd used across Ben's pies are made from scratch rather than from a pre-made filling base, so the ingredient list stays short and recognizable — pumpkin, cream cheese, sugar, flour, evaporated milk, eggs, butter, and spices, with gums like carob bean, xanthan, or guar used only as stabilizers in the cream cheese itself. There's no high-fructose corn syrup, no preservatives, and no artificial flavoring anywhere in the filling. The pie averages 3 pounds, which is heavier than most supermarket pumpkin pies because of the added cheesecake layer underneath the pumpkin.

Why does an all-butter crust behave differently than a shortening crust?
Butter is roughly 80% fat and about 16% water, while shortening is close to 100% fat with no water content. That water matters: when the crust hits oven heat, the water in the butter turns to steam and pushes apart thin layers of dough, which is what creates a flaky, layered texture instead of a uniform, sandy one. Shortening produces a more tender but flatter crumb because there's no steam action, and it also melts at a higher temperature than butter, which changes how the crust sets and browns. The tradeoff is that butter dough is harder to work with by hand — it's more temperature-sensitive — which is why a lot of commercial bakeries default to shortening for consistency rather than flavor or texture.

Does this pie work for keto, paleo, or carnivore diets?
No, and it isn't formulated to. The filling contains sugar and the crust is made with unbleached wheat flour, both of which put it well outside keto's typical daily carb allowance and outside paleo's exclusion of grains and refined sugar. The cream cheese and evaporated milk also mean it doesn't fit carnivore, which excludes plant-based ingredients like pumpkin and cane sugar entirely. This is a traditional from-scratch dessert pie, not a low-carb or animal-based reformulation, so if you're tracking macros strictly for one of those protocols, this isn't the product for that occasion.

Can I use this pie as a base for other desserts, or serve it differently than straight from the oven?
Once baked and cooled, it holds up well with a topping of lightly sweetened whipped cream, a drizzle of caramel, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side, since the pumpkin layer is heavily spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice and can carry those additions without getting muddy. Some people slice it thinner than a standard pumpkin pie because the cheesecake layer adds density, so a smaller wedge with a topping reads more balanced than a full traditional slice. It's not designed to be repurposed into another baked dish — it needs to go straight from frozen into your oven as-is, since the crust and both fillings are built to bake together in one shot. Leftover slices are best eaten cold or gently warmed, not rebaked, since rebaking can dry out the cheesecake layer.

How can I verify what's actually in this pie and where it's made?
The ingredient list is printed in full on the product label and matches what's listed here: pumpkin, cream cheese, sugar, flour, evaporated milk, eggs, butter, vanilla extract, Himalayan sea salt, and the four baking spices, with no hidden fillers. It's made by hand at a small bakery crew's kitchen in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, rather than at a large co-packing facility, which is why the ingredient list stays short. There are no organic, gluten-free, or allergen-free certifications on this product, so don't take the scratch-made description as a stand-in for any of those claims. For allergen purposes, rely on the Contains statement — this pie contains milk, egg, and wheat.

What makes the crust the focus of this pie rather than the pumpkin or cheesecake filling?
The crust is the one component Ben's crew treats as non-negotiable across every pie they make: 100% butter, never shortening, mixed and shaped by hand rather than run through automated equipment. Getting a butter crust to hold its structure under a wet filling like this one — pumpkin on top of a cream cheese layer — is harder than doing it with a dry-filling pie, because there's more moisture working against the dough during baking. That's part of why the pie needs to cool fully before slicing: the crust needs time to firm back up and the cheesecake layer needs time to set, and cutting into it early will show a softer crust and a looser cheesecake layer than letting it rest does.

Why does this pie need to cool completely before slicing?
The cheesecake layer relies on its stabilizers — carob bean, xanthan, and guar gum in the cream cheese — to hold their gel structure, and that structure firms up as the pie drops in temperature after baking. Cut into it hot and the cheesecake layer will still be loose and will run rather than hold a clean slice line against the pumpkin layer above it. This is the same reason a traditional cheesecake is chilled before serving rather than cut warm. Letting it cool fully, and then refrigerating any leftovers, is what keeps the two layers distinct instead of blending into one texture.