This month’s installment of the Daring Bakers Challenge is hosted by two lovely DBs- Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle at Feeding my Enthusiasms and their challenge is:

Cheesecake Pops From Sticky, Chewy, Messy Gooey by Jill O’Connor.

I bought this cookbook a few months ago and I must say that it is filled with decadent sweets definitely in one or all of the title categories.

My experience: I halved the recipe and baked it in a loaf pan to get enough depth to scoop, set in a baking pan filled with water. I baked it for about 50 minutes, so a full batch will need much more time than stated in the recipe. The cheesecake is delicious but I couldn’t see myself ever consuming 30-40 pops. Rick is on a business trip and I’m not a big sweet eater.
I decided to decorate them as Bumblebees drowsing on flowers to celebrate Spring and -well also because I love bees. I’m sure that’s obvious 🙂
When I scooped the cheesecake I put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes and then rerolled the scoops to smooth and elongate them slightly before freezing for a couple of hours. I made a ganache of heavy cream and Callebaut bittersweet chocolate to dip them in. The yellow is a lemon flavored compound coating and I alternated dipping in each to get the striped effect. I melted lemon drops for about 3 minutes at 350F on parchment to make the wings. I also sprinkled a little yellow sanding sugar about to simulate pollen.

Go on -give a try – get in touch with your inner Daring Baker- here is the challenge and recipe as provided by Deborah and Elle:

Allowed Variations. Yes you can make some changes to this cheesecake as long as you promise to use the basic cheesecake recipe (although you can add a flavor to it if you like) and do keep it white (sorry, no chocolate or coffee or mocha), and keep the pops to the 2 ounce size.

The dipping flavors and colors are completely up to you.

If you want to use decorations, go for it. Same with drizzles and ribbons on the sticks. Or leave them plain after dipping them. You can even dip them in graham cracker crumbs and then the chocolate to get more of the cheesecake feel to them.

You can cut the cheesecake into geometric shapes instead of making balls, triangles or squares or diamond just keep them about 2 ounces each. We can’t wait to see what combinations our Daring Baker come up with, just make sure to use the basic cheesecake recipe, to make the pops 2 ounces or close to that in size, and to dip each pop in chocolate or confectionary coating and have it on a lollipop stick.

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped, you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate Most candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) – Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

Elle -Feeding My Enthusiasms
Deborah – Taste and Tell

Check out the other Daring Bakers Cheesecake Pops here. We have a new site too with public forums if you have questions for the DBs. We have now acquired over 1000 members and have worn poor Blogger out- yes we are taking over the world! 😉