Making a pumpkin cheesecake for the dessert at Thanksgiving dinner. Found a good recipe. (With cheesecake it's rather easy.) Question is what to put on top to get that wow factor? The cake has a sour cream topping. The recipe suggested pecan halves. That sounds way to mundane. Chocolate doesn't seem appropriate. Please help.

-Ed Szrom

OK, OK. Go to epicurious.com and search "dulce de leche". There is a mascarpone cheesecake with dulce de leche. Follow the topping recipe, except don't bother to candy the pecans, it's not necessary. Just roll the pecans in the sauce and place them around the cheesecake and put the rest of the sauce in whatever design you can manage. Trust me--it's all good and a more WOW factor, you don't need.

Are you using the Epicurious recipe for the pumpkin cheesecake? If you are and itis the one with the nut crust also, the pecan halves look beautiful circled around the top edges. No disrespect meant to Barbara above but I think it would be too many flavors competing to have the Dulce de Leche on top. That is just my personal preference.

How about pieces of pumpkin seed brittle? You can easily find a peanut brittle recipe online and sub the pepitas for the peanuts. Break into pieces, garnish cheesecake slices with a piece of brittle.

I use that same pumpkin cheesecake recipe (the one with the bourbon topping?) - you could crush some of the candied nuts to sprinkle a few and do the circle thing. I do not even eat cheesecake, but I love making them - and this one is always a crowd-pleaser. Bourbon straight up on the side is also always a crowd -pleaser...

I think creating a different crust and perhaps folding in some type of liqueur into the sour cream topping will add some pazzaz.( I would suggest using creme fraiche) Construct the crust by adding the following into a food processor:1/2 bag of Skor toffee bits,toasted pecans, 1/4 tsp cinnamon,8- 10 shortbread cookies, and 2 tsb butter. Press into springform pan- bake 10-15 min until golden brown- let set for 30 min. Add cheesecake recipe- follow your recipe - then fold 1 tsb of amaretto or liqueur of your choice to sour cream/ creme fraiche topping. Once cheesecake is set spinkle toffee and chopped toasted pecans around the sides of the cheese cake. whatever you choose- Good luck-

Thanks for all the help. I ended up chopping up some candied pecans and using a paper stencil, created a pumpkin-shaped pattern of nuts on top of the cake.

-Ed