Cheesecake Pops

I've joined a club.

I'm not one to join clubs, not since I was a kid, really, but this one seemed fun. It's called Daring Bakers, and you can view a list of all the bakers and their sites here. I generally don't join clubs and volunteer for stuff because I always feel like I'm not going to be able to hold up my end of the deal. And so it almost was this time.

I suddenly realized that the day I thought I was going to post was three days later than I was supposed to post. Luckily, after some last minute baking, everything came together. And I had a dinner party to go to, so I had a place to bring the treats!

The recipe is one of the messier I've tried. The aforementioned treats are Cheesecake Pops, from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor. The recipe, in my mind, is of three parts. The first part is the making and baking of a cheesecake. (I thought for sure I'd have a massive overflow here!)

Anyway, I've never made a cheesecake before, so I was looking forward to this challenge. As it turns out, cheesecake is not particularly difficult to make. It's a bit of a challenge to decide when the cheesecake is appropriately baked, though.

So I baked this cheesecake, and then chilled it overnight. And then came part two of the recipe, which I have designated the cranky section. Ohh, was I cranky. The recipe recommends that you scoop out balls of cheesecake from the pan and then set the balls on the baking pan, insert the sticks, and freeze.

I could absolutely not scoop spheres of cheesecake. I could scoop, but not spheres. I tried rolling the cheesecake into spheres, like play-doh, but no luck; I ended up with gloves of cheesecake on my hands and tiny chunks of lumpy cheesecake on my pan.

Not a safe procedure with little kids running around doing bad things I needed my hands to put a stop to.

Noticing the crankiness level building, I quickly decided to switch to cutting cubes of cheesecake from the pan. Much neater, although there was a large amount of scrap cheesecake left. Easily eaten by various family members and passers-by, but still, I definitely think I missed some key step since my pops aren't spherical. Here's the pre-freeze pops:

Rather ugly, huh?

Stage three of the recipe calls for melting chocolate and dipping the cheesecake. Easy peasy and fun. I added crisco to the chocolate, as directed, which I've never done before. I didn't really notice a difference in taste or texture. Chocolate definitely helps make things look better: the pops weren't failures after all. I drizzled some chocolate on the scraps as well, and called them cheesecake bars.

Then I bundled up the pops for the party. Yum! Definitely a recipe to use again.