Cheesecake Pops!

These were so fun to make and totally perfect for a party! I made them for a baby shower this month, and they were a big hit. In fact, a friend of mine asked me to make them again this Thursday for her son's Scouting Court of Honor. I can see myself making these again and again.  Which says a lot since I'm not even a die-hard cheesecake lover. But I absolutely love serving these cute little pops, and everyone loves them!

When I made these for the baby shower, I used tall 8-inch sticks for half of them and then had bunches of them coming out of bottles for table decorations. Then for the other half I used 4-inch sticks and layed them on a tray. I sprinkled some of them with stars and the rest I piped contrasting melted chocolate on them. I think the star sprinkles were cuter. (I learned my lesson that using a plastic baggie with a snip in the corner does NOT make nice piping. Once I got out my real cake decorating bags and tips, the piping turned out much better.)

Most importantly, I cut them into squares instead of the balls. (Thank you Melanie (my cute sis-in-law) at Mel's Kitchen Cafe for your tips!) It was SO MUCH EASIER to cut them into squares than trying to scoop them out into balls. The cheesecake was definitely too soft for scooping. But as long as I scraped the knife after each slice, cutting them into squares was a snap. And I actually think they looked really cute as squares. All my other minor changes and/or tips I highlighted in pink inside the recipe.

I LOVED this Daring Bakers Challenge!! ---Erin

 

Cheesecake Pops

 

Submitted by Erin  ~  The Sisters Cafe

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 {This recipe originally says it makes 30-40 pops. Because I cut these into squares instead of balls, I got nearly 100 pops from this recipe. I bought two packages of 8” lollipop sticks (25 in each pkg) and one package of 4” lollipop sticks (50 in the pkg) and I only had about 10 leftover.}
- 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.) (Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible) {Since I got way more pops out of the recipe, I ended up needing much more chocolate. I bought Ghirardelli milk chocolate and used that on most of them. I ended up using 1 ½ pkg of that, about ½ pkg semisweet and ½ pkg white chocolate – between dipping and drizzling. Dark chocolate would be better than semisweet, but I didn’t have any on-hand.}
- 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
- Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees)

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325. 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. {I couldn’t find a 10-inch cake pan, so instead I used a metal 9x13 pan and lined it with tinfoil (and then sprayed it with Pam) so I could lift the cheesecake out of the pan when it was cooled.} 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. {My cheesecake took a little over 50 minutes to cook. Unlike usual cheesecake baking, I wanted the middle set before I took it out because that would make the pops easier to cut into.}
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 (no larger than a golfball size) and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. {I removed the cheesecake from the pan by holding the tinfoil, and then I cut them into squares. After each time using the knife I wiped it on the edge of a plate so it would continue to make clean cuts. Scooping them out to make balls like they describe is very messy and hard, and it wastes a lot of cheesecake. I’m glad I did the squares!} 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 its 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. {What worked best for me is to pick up some stars in my fingers and sprinkle them onto the pops.}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. {I didn’t want them to have a flat edge in the chocolate, so instead of placing them on the parchment I propped them up using a cooling rack. A piece of Styrofoam would work well too (it would probably work better!).} 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.