Daring Bakers April Challenge - Frozen Cheesecake Pops

Steven here, good friends, and I gotta tell ya - Joey turned over the honors this month to moi, yours truly, because he's such a great guy. I LOVE cheesecake, chocolate and just about anything you can add to it to make it even yummier. This month's challenge is to make "cheesecake pops" - lovely little balls of cheesecake on a stick, glazed with a delicious chocolate coating, and enhanced any way you choose to do so. I had a blast with this one. The basic cheesecake recipe is SO good, that we will surely incorporate it into future desserts. The consistency is dense and rich, just the right amount of sweetness, and holds its shape well - important when you are forming balls.

I started by combining the cheesecake ingredients, mixing them according to the recipe, and baking. The directions called for a 10" cake pan, but in lieu of that (we don't happen to own one that size- YET)...I used a 9" square pan which is a bit deeper than usual - we often use this one for brownies. I baked the cheesecake (longer than called for because of our freakin' oven which has a mind of it's own and never maintains a proper temperature.grrrrrrr.) Then cooled to room temperature and proceeded to chill the lovely golden mixture overnight. Saturday morning I woke up, headed straight to the utensil drawer for our ice-cream scoop, and dug into that pan to start forming 2 ounce balls. I wore rubber gloves because the mixture is sticky, and shaped the balls and placed them on parchment for the next step - freezing. At this point, Joey, with sticks in hand, plunged the lollipop handles into the balls and we shoved them into our already bulging freezer for several hours, during which we ate, shopped, and I rested while Joey made a Tres Leches cake for a co-worker's birthday.

That afternoon, the chocolate came out of hiding and warmed itself by the fire for the enrobing of the balls.

We dipped some of the balls into crushed chocolate grahams, then into three different kinds of melted chocolate - some in white chocolate (tinted green as we had bought it for St. Pats and not had a chance to use it), semi-sweet and bittersweet. While still warm, we immediately rolled them in various toppings: multi-colored jimmies (see photo), mini cherry chips, toffee bits, chopped toffee peanuts, and for a few we just covered one type of chocolate with it's opposite drizzled on top...its such a lovely tray of goods.











I hope you all get to try these - we surely will add them to our menu, and can't wait to see the look in your eyes when they roll back in your head. Several who tasted them at work today said they had little mouth orgasms (if you'll pardon the use of the word).

More comin' atcha soon - stay tuned...but don't stay hungry - order from us NOW!