[dilemma]

My neighbor and I are sharing Christmas dinner for 12. She's cooking the main course and I'm doing a dessert table. I asked her if she had any favorites and she said Frozen Pumpkin Cheesecake and brought over the recipe.This is one of those recipes that calls for beaten raw egg whites to be folded into the cream cheese/pumpkin mixture and then frozen. This makes me nervous, serving raw eggs - am I being silly? The recipe was in the city newspaper just before Thanksgiving this year.

[kuan]

In general, it's better to post the whole recipe when asking specific questions.

There's ways that this can be safe(r) and ways not. If the sugar goes into the whites, ie., you're making a meringue, then it's safer (given that there's enough sugar) than just plain eggwhites.

At large gatherings, it's better to not take risks. Although people eat raw eggs all the time, you could get a bad one. Sometimes it's not the eggs themselves, most of the time it's cross contamination. Someone may not have washed their hands properly after having stuffed the turkey and moved the pie, stuff may drip on it, etc.

[dilemma]

Since it was a request I would like to make something very similar only without the raw eggs. Perhaps using gelatin or a gelatin-based product would work. With all that spice, I'm not really concerned about flavor just texture.

Frozen Pumpkin Cheesecake
Crust:
1 1/2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
1/4 cup butter

Filling:
12 oz light cream cheese
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup white sugar, divided
2 cups pure pumpkin purée
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1 cup whipping cream

Ganache:
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 F. Melt butter. Stir in chocolate wafer crumbs and mix until well blended. Press into a 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool before filling.

In a large bowl beat cream cheese until soft. Add half the sugar (1/4 cup) and beat until smooth. Add the yolks to the cream cheese mixture, one yolk at a time. Stir in the pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar (1/4 cup) until stiff peaks form, set aside.

In a small bowl, whip the cream. Using a wire whisk fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin/cream cheese mixture until well blended. Add beaten egg whites and fold using the wire whisk until there are no white specks. Pour the mixture into the prepared springform pan. Cover with plastic wrap.

Freeze for at least 4 hours in advance. One hour before serving, remove the cheesecake from the freezer and remove the collar of the springform pan. Let the cheesecake sit at room temperature until serving time.

Ten minutes before serving, make the ganache. Heat whipping cream and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. When the chocolate has melted remove from heat and stir until smooth. Set aside.
To serve, cut the cheesecake into 10 -12 slices, place each slice on a dessert plate, drizzle approximately 1 1/2 Tbsp. of the ganache on top of each slice.

[kuan]

There's probably enough sugar in this recipe to be safe... but I think you can do this without the eggs. They're just there for added richness. Use a full fat cream cheese to make up for the lost eggyolks. I also think it's quite safe. You will need to double the whipping cream to come up with a similiar result.

Essentially you're making a frozen pumpkin mousse in a pie shell, served with warm chocolate fudge "sauce." If you want, you can look for a frozen pumpkin mousse recipe which doesn't use eggs if you're not comfortable with my suggestion above. I think it will work though.

Edit: Notice you're making a meringue out of the eggwhite, but you're not cooking the yolks anyway.

[dilemma]

Will take your suggestion of using full fat cream cheese and extra whipped cream. Will let you know how it turns out.