Roasted Pear Cheesecake

This cheesecake ticks a lot of boxes - easy to make, looks great, and tastes delicious. It's adapted from a couple of recipes I found in a number of places. 

Roasted Pear Cheesecake

Crust:
There's a cookie available in stores here called Anna's Ginger Cookies. They are thin, spicy, and crisp and shaped like flowers. I used one package of them for this recipe. 

I saved enough whole cookies to go around the edge of a 9 inch springform pan. The remainder of the cookies I crushed and added some melted butter to help them hold together. Then I placed the whole cookies around the edge of the pan, sinking the bottoms into the crumb crust to help them stay in place.

A graham cracker crust would be just fine, but the gingersnaps added a welcome bit of spice.

Filling:
2 - 8 oz packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup real maple syrup
1 cup whipping cream, whipped with 3 Tablespoons of icing sugar

Beat together the cream cheese and maple syrup until creamy. Fold in 1/4 of the whipped cream, then gently fold in the remainder. 
Pour onto the crumb crust. Refrigerate.

Pear Topping:
Choose 2-3 pears that are firm, but ripe. Quarter each pear lengthwise and gently remove the core. Try to make the pieces as uniform as possible. Cut each quarter into half, creating eighths. 

Place pear slices on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with real maple syrup. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until pears are almost tender. Turn over and brush with more maple syrup. Bake another 5-10 minutes until golden and tender. Let cool on parchment. 

Place pears on chilled cheesecake to serve.