The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake Review
If I were a rich man….
The Fresh Market knows how to entice my gullible tastebuds. Curses! Their scrummy bakery desserts are too expensive for me to regularly indulge, but they sure are fancy-pants stuff. I’ve seen a number of “pumpkin spice” cheesecakes floating around my local grocery stores, but The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake is actually PUMPKIN cheesecake. Pumpkin puree is featured prominently in the cheesecake batter, rather than merely spices.
The texture of the cheesecake is fluffy and soft, but dense enough to feel substantial. There’s sufficient pumpkin taste to be distinct, but not so much that it turns into a pumpkin pie. I think the pumpkin provides some additional fudgey moisture, overall. It’s only lightly sweet, which I prefer. Compared to other cheesecakes, this one is mild tasting, and only slightly tangy. More creamy than cheesy. I didn’t detect much, if any, spice taste in the cheesecake itself — it’s a smooth, gentle, creamy taste.
HOWEVER, the thick crust is bursting with spiciness! In fact, there’s so much sassy spice in the crust that once I ate a bite, it made every other part of the cheesecake taste spicy, too. The strong zing of the spices lingers in the mouth, and turns every subsequent bite into a spice-fest. Contagious spiciness. It’s an almost “hot” taste (like a cinnamon candy). I loved this.
I would describe the crust as extremely moist. And significantly sweeter than the cheesecake body. It’s a soft crust, with no cookie bits or crunch. That’s because it’s made from flour, instead of crumbs or crushed cookies. I didn’t really like the flour taste — it tasted like raw flour, instead of cooked flour, even though I’m certain it WAS baked. The ingredients include brown rice flour and wheat germ, too. There’s a slight brown sugar touch, but it’s overshadowed by the aggressive taste of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.
Aesthetically, I would describe this cheesecake as having a pleasing home-made, almost rustic appearance. It doesn’t look like a generic, mass-produced supermarket cheesecake, but rather something from a boutique bakery. Or your mom’s kitchen. The only negative is that mine had some odd, mechanical impressions on the top. Mysterious.
This is a tiny cheesecake. Mine was a scant 4.5 inches in diameter. Yes, I measured it. It’s comparatively TALL, but compact. This results in super-stubby-short slices. Hey, I’m a super-stubby-short individual myself, so I don’t judge. There’s probably a way to make these odd little halfling slices look like some kind of sleek, intentionally edgy, gourmet-shaped dessert, IDK. With some finesse, and good luck. But otherwise, yeah, they look like you just didn’t serve enough dessert. You cheesecake-miser!
I’d say you’d be lucky to get 6 miniature servings from this cheesecake. The piece on my plate here is 3 ounces. The whole cheesecake weighs about 1 pound, 5 ounces (I weighed mine at 1 pound, 4 ounces, so maybe some liquid evaporated). It’s definitely an awkward dessert to slice and serve. It’s a convenient size for a single person or couple, but not ideal for entertaining.
Ingredients in The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake
The ingredients from the label are mighty confusing, but here is what I think is actually in the cheesecake I bought:
- Cream cheese (Pasteurized cultured milk and cream, Salt, Stabilizers [Carob bean and/or Guar gums])
- Pumpkin
- Cane sugar
- Pasteurized cultured milk and cream
- Eggs
- Brown rice flour
- Brown sugar
- Butter (Cream, Salt)
- Flour (Wheat flour, Malted barley flour, Niacin, Reduced iron, Thiamine mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic acid)
- Wheat germ
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
- Salt
- Cloves
- Carob bean gum
- Guar gum
You can see from my label, there’s additional ingredients for “whipped topping,” “pearl,” and “rice crisp” and other stuff — which I believe is for decorated cheesecakes. Mine had no decorations, so I assume these ingredients were not included in mine. But who knows. Come on, Fresh Market! Stop making your labels confusing!
Shelf life for The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake
It took me about 5 days to eat all of my cheesecake. It hadn’t lost quality or freshness, although the “skin” of the cheesecake got a tiny bit more rubbery. The dessert came packed in a thin cardboard box, so it wasn’t sealed. I might transfer this to an air-tight cake keeper if there are food odors in your refrigerator that might soak into it before serving. Especially if you are serving this to guests.
Price for The Fresh Market Pumpkin Cheesecake
This 21 ounce cheesecake cost $18, so if you wrangled 6 servings out of this, they would each cost $3. And, frankly, you are likely to have fewer than 6 servings. If you cut this into 4 quarters, each piece would cost $4.50. This is much more expensive, per serving, than any of the other desserts I’ve reviewed so far. “Too rich for my blood.” Although I enjoyed this mightily, I’ll need to win the lottery if I want to keep shopping at The Fresh Market. Or marry a rich man. Or, become a rich man. “If I were a rich man….Yada yada yada yada yada ya….”
If money wasn’t an issue, I’d totally buy this again. It was lovely.
More Reviews You Might Like (or Hate)
Check out these other reviews I’ve recently written:
- Costco Plain Cheesecake
- Aldi Pumpkin Spice Whipped Cheesecake
- Costco Pumpkin Spice Loaf
- Publix Tiramisu Delight Cake Review
- Costco Pumpkin Pie
- Sourdough Bread from The Fresh Market
Author’s note: I wasn’t paid to write this review. I bought this cheesecake with my own monies. I have no affiliation with The Fresh Market. I hope you can’t stop humming Fiddler on the Roof songs for the indefinite future!
