Pumpkin Cheesecake

Gather ingredients, measuring cups, mixing bowls, foil, kitchen utensils, hand mixer and springform pan.
Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.
In the large ziplock bag, place one sleeve of graham crackers. You can use anything to paddle the bag to break up the graham crackers into crumbs. We use a rolling pin. A food processor can also be used but I don’t like cleaning up the extra mess.
Place graham cracker crumbs (1 1/4 cup) in the bowl with 6 tablespoons of room temperature butter(I have even melted the butter and it mixes much easier) and 1/4 cup of sugar. Mix with hands and place into the springform pan. Work the crumb mixture until nice and even and pressed firmly. You can just put the graham crust on the bottom of the pan or you can also come up the sides.
Add the 24 ounces of cream cheese to mixing bowl and blend well with hand mixer. Make sure the cream has had time to sit to bring temperature down before this or you may get a chunky cheesecake and we don’t want that.
Add 1.5 cups sugar, 1/4 cup sour cream, 15 ounces pumpkin pie filling, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 3 eggs to the cream cheese and blend until smooth and creamy.
Pour mixture into the springform pan and cover sides with foil.
Place in oven for 1.5 hours.
Remove from oven and let cool before placing in fridge to chill for minimum of 2 hours.
Remove from fridge and release spring sides.
Cover cheesecake with a cool whip layer, followed by drizzle of caramel. We use the caramel from the squeeze bottle to make this step a cinch.
Serve. We always do a drizzle of caramel on a plate, then place a slice of pumpkin cheesecake on top for a nice presentation and the caramel sets into the graham cracker crust. Oh so delicious!