Cheesecake - Daring Baker Style

Yay it is nearing the end of the month and I am sure you all know what that means. It's Daring Baker time!! Elle at Feeding my Enthusiasms and Deborah at Taste and Tell chose this month's recipe of cheesecake pops. Although this is not a very challenging recipe it does incorporate some techniques that some bakers are not familiar with which is why this recipe was chosen.


The recipe was very self-explanatory and easy to put together but many people had problems with the bake time and cheesecakes not setting up. The recipe says to bake the cheesecake for 35-45 minutes but mine took well over an hour and I even divided the batter in half into two different pans (a 9" and a 10" springform).


After baking and chilling the cheesecake I took one of the pans and cut out flowers with my Pampered Chef creative cutters set and took the other pan and rolled them into balls. The taste of this cheesecake was wonderful, very rich and creamy. Forming the shapes was quite a sticky mess and dipping the pops in chocolate was fun but frustrating. My melted chocolate had a lot of tiny little pieces of cheesecake in it, from dipping the pops, and it was hard to keep the oreo's and crushed M&M's from falling right off the balls. All in all I will probably make these again but I would probably enlist someone to help with the rolling and dipping.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the daring bakers cheesecake pops by visiting the blogroll.

Cheesecake Pops
(Adapted from: Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor)

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

Ingredients
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

Directions
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.