pumpkin cheescake mousse EASY! Five ingredients in four steps!

  My kids have established a new birthday tradition. Instead of birthday cake (we all dislike cake except for Kendel, who loves it) the birthday child gets to choose a special treat. Of course, we still have ice cream with whatever treat is chosen. We all love ice cream!

 This year Caleb chose caramel-covered shortbread. Emma made the shortbread, I made the caramel, and it was delicious! Emma chose pumpkin cheesecake. She decided a whole month before her birthday what she wanted and she really anticipated it.  We knew we would be in and out the day of her birthday between music lessons, classes, and orchestra, so Emma opted to have cheesecake for breakfast instead of dessert. That way, the whole family could participate.

 I totally planned to make the cheesecake the day before her birthday, so it could cool in the refrigerator the requisite number of hours, but the day got away from me and I thought up this delicious, much easier dessert rather than spending my precious sleeping hours baking. I had seen a similar dessert on pinterest. Emma didn't mind and we whipped it up together the morning of her birthday.

Here is how we made our pumpking cheesecake mousse. Keep in mind that we made a very large batch. Our family of ten could only eat half of it.

You will need:
1 quart heavy whipping cream
1 29 oz can pumpkin
2 instant cheesecake boxed mixes
2 8oz boxes cream cheese
pumpkin pie spice
1 stick butter

This is a box on instant cheesecake from WalMart, in case you wondered what I was talking about. Inside are two envelopes, one with graham cracker crumbs for the crust, and one with dry cheesecake filling powder. Mine is 11.2 ounces.

1. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add the crumb package to the butter and mix. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of a glass or cup, whatever you will be using for your dessert servings. Reserve about a Tablespoon of the crumb mixture to garnish your desserts, if you'd like.

2. Add 3 cups sugar to a quart of heavy whipping cream and whip. Set aside 1 cup of the whipped cream to garnish the finished mousse. This is Emma, whipping the cream.

3. To the remaining whipped cream, add 2 packages of cream cheese, 2 packages of instant cheesecake, can of pumpkin, and 6 Tablespoons pumpkin pie spice. Beat it all together. This is your filling.

4. Spoon the filling into the cups holding the crumb crust. Top with reserved whipped cream, and garnish with a few extra crumbs. Voila! J'ai fait! You could refrigerate it if you wanted to, but we were hungry and couldn't wait.

 Happy Birthday to Emma, and I get the mom of the year award for this breakfast!

  Zizzy's messy self is Proof that this is delicious! It is very rich, and tastes much more "cheesecake-y" than real pumpkin cheescake. We prefer this, and that is saying something, because we love our pumpkin cheescake!