Last year I made a pumpkin cheesecake with Splenda, and found it to be
sickeningly sweet. So this year I made one using xylitol as a sugar
substitute. I decided that I would mix together everything but the eggs, and
taste for sweetness before cooking.

I started with 1/2 cup of xylitol, and ended up using less (3/4 cup) than
the amount of sugar called for in the standard recipes of this size (1 cup).
In addition, I skipped the various crust possibilities--I don't think that
crust adds anything to a good cheesecake--and cooked it in a bain marie. The
result was very creamy and delicious, albeit a bit too soft in the center.
(This might be because of my less-than-reliable lower oven, which I was
forced to use because the turkey was in the good one.) It did not taste
artificially sweetened, and no one got diarrhea from eating it.

The proportions I used we 24 oz softened cream cheese, 1 15 oz can of
plain pumpkin, 3/4 cup of xylitol, 1 TBS cornstarch (one can skip this and
use 6 egg yolks instead of 3 whole eggs), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon,
fresh grated nutmeg to taste, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/8 tsp ground cloves,
3 eggs. Next time I might throw in an additional egg yolk to firm it up a
bit.