Sunday, April 27, 2008

Daring Bakers Get A Little Cheesy!

Greetings! It's time for yet another Daring Bakers Challenge! This month we've got the yummy and super-delicious Cheesecake Pops!! Deb from Taste and Tell and Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms were the lovely hostesses for this month, and God bless them, they picked such a mouth-watering choice, perfect for my mom & sister's Breast Cancer 3-Day bake sale.

These turned out so well, I loved how much freedom we were given as far as decorating and stuff goes. So much fun!! Here's the recipe:

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 – 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
Instructions: 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.

My thoughts: The cheesecake recipe is AMAZING! So smooth and delicious, I fully plan on using it in the future for whenever I need to make a cheesecake (I'll probably halve the recipe, as this makes a lot of batter). However, I doubt I'll make the pops themselves again, because it's just too much of a pain the ass to roll them and dip them. I had to freeze the cheesecake, then roll the balls, after that I had to re-freeze the balls in order to get them hard enough to dip. I also went through 2 packages of white chocolate, and three packages of semi-sweet chocolate in order to coat all 46 of the pops that I had. Maybe if I had chosen to use the wafer chocolate or something, I don't know, maybe it would have streched a bit further. Oh well, they still turned out really well, very nice presentation and they sold really well at the bake sale. This recipe didn't take me nearly as long as I had expected (this IS a Daring Bakers Challenge, of course), but they certainly tasted like they took a long time!

~Mehgan~

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the dark chocolate with the colorful sprinkles. Nice job!

I'm glad they were a hit at the bake sale!

L Vanel said...

Oooh the white chocolate looks delectable! I love them both actually.

Sarah said...

Great job! I feel the same way...not sure if I would do this again or not, but it was fun to do it once...gotta love being a Daring Baker!

Big Boys Oven said...

How can my kids say NO to this cheese pops of yours! you so bad, they want them now, where to get now? lol!

fanny said...

Love your funky sprinkles. They're seriously awesome. So are your pops!

xx fanny

April said...

Beautiful pops!!

Deborah said...

I was thinking that these would be a hit for a bake sale - I'm glad they were for you! Great job on this month's challenge!

Katie said...

Your cheesecake looks so light and fluffy, love the decorations too!

Anne said...

They are simply lovely :)

sunita said...

Love the white pops...lovely :-)

Suzana said...

Just adorable! Great job on the challenge.

Patsyk said...

I love the sprinkles you used! Very cute.

Barbara said...

The coating on your pops looks so rich and decadent. Great job!

Fran Z said...

Great presentation! Lovely pops!

Lunch Buckets said...

I love your big square sprinkles -

Shelby said...

I'm sure they went over extremely well at the bake sale! I'll have one of each please! :)

Erika said...

Great sprinkles! They are so cute!

Renee said...

Very festive! They look awesome.

Bakerette said...

adorable pops!

Tiffany @ Lattes And Life said...

The square sprinkles are so cute!! I don't think I've ever seen those before.

Dharm said...

nicely done! The pops look just great

T’s Treats said...

Great job!! Your pops look wonderful!!

Megan said...

Love those sprinkles! And your pictures look great. Great recipe for a bake sale. As long as it's not that hot of a day. :)

Dolores said...

Where are your mom and sister walking? I'm doing the San Francisco walk... it's absolutely a life-altering experience if they've never done it. Hope their bake sale went well, and I'm glad your glorious pops were a hit!

Amy said...

They look great! Perfect for a bake sale too. :)

Jessica said...

Your pops look great! COngrats!