The Daring Bakers Do Cheesecake Pops

A little over a month ago i found the Daring Bakers and was so completely thrilled with what they are doing decided to join in on the fun! Each month one of the DBers host and post a recipe that over 1000 members work on throughout the month and then publish all on the same day. It was a lot of fun and I am really excited to see what fun things we will have to do in the months to come! If you'd like to see what others came up with for this assignment, you can head over to the Daring Bakers Daring Bakers blogroll here.

This month was Cheesecake Pops. I had never heard of such a thing, but seeing as how I am a huge fan of cheesecake AND chocolate, how could I go wrong?!?! So I set out to complete my challenge, and it turned out great! I took them to my small group last week for everyone to enjoy and they received rave reviews... in response to my explanation of why and where the idea had come from i explained that i had joined a baking community online. in response to that I heard , "words you will never hear me say..." from our beloved and fearless leader Bob.

Anyways, I digress. I dove into the challenge super excited and I came out satisfied with my work. This is a super dessert to take to a dinner party or some sort of special event. They're not that hard to make, they're just time consuming :) The only thing i had a slight problem with was the baking time. I started checking the cake at about 35 minutes and then after an hour and then every 5 minutes or so. It rose high above the top of the pan, which since this was my first time making a cheesecake still do not know if that is normal, but when I took it out, it settled back down into the pan and ended up being fabulous.

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 of flavored coatings (you know those chocolate wafers that you can get at different craft stores like Michaels, Joanns, sometimes even Walmart. You may want a few different colors/flavors for variety :)

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


Directions:

- Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F
- Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan)
- 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
- 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 (the directions originally said 35-45 minutes, but I found that it took much longer, closer to an hour and 15 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. (mine were MUCH better after 3 hours but i jumped the gun and started some of them after just an hour and a half)
- When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate by heating in the microwave at 30 second intervals stirring in between
- 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 until done
- Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.