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Sunday, April 27, 2008

Redneck Cheesecake lollipops!

You know you live in a redneck town when:


the only thing you can find as stems for the cheesecake lollipops are toothpicks! SWEET!
That's what I'm looking for. hehehe.
The only real problem I had was that the toothpicks came out of the cheesecake lollipops, probably cause toothpicks SUCK at doing anything besides picking out food from between your teeth.
Other than that everything went really well. I dipped them in caramel, chocolate and white chocolate then covered them in either sprinkles, crushed oreos or coconut.
Our neighbors gobbled up the ones we gave them and Brandon also gobbled up most of them. Which is good. I had my fair share but they are only good for 3 days max. Then they start to taste more like the food in your refrigerator than anything else. Ew!

It must be magic, because Brandon had annouced his "need" of cheesecake the week I had planned to make these so it came right in the nick of time.
So come ye, come all, Elle – Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah – Taste and Tell
has challeneged us, and we have prevailed! GO DARING BAKERS, GO!
Cheesecake Pops - Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
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 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

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.

15 comments:

Jade Is Green! said...

Hehe the bums of yours only got coated too. They look delicious though! And just so you know I gave up on making them round too. The ones in the picture were the best of about 40. Also I did plan on making them triangles but it was too gooey. Shh don't tell anybody though. Haha.

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Too funny about the toothpicks! I saw some people use straws which I thought was a great idea.

Yours turned out great!

Rebecca said...

Only toothpicks? And I thought I lived in Bumf*ck, USA! I found my lollipop sticks at one of my local craft stores.

Kristen said...

I like that you took the caramel route too! Great job, even if you had to use toothipicks, they still look delicious!

Emily said...

Wow, I think those look pretty darn good. And I'm the first to comment. Yippie!

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Very well done! They look great!

Cheers,

Rosa

L Vanel said...

They look like the perfect dessert for a cocktail buffet. I bet they were delicious!

April said...

Your pops look great! I will have to try dipping in caramel first next time, as these will be made again and again in my house! :)

Deborah said...

I really wanted to do caramel, but ran out of time. Your pops look wonderful!!

Christine said...

LOL, Valerie! Luckily, I avoided falling into my redneck state by using bamboo skewers cut in half. Although, those mini skewers in the shape of swords would have been kind of cool!

I can imagine how good it would have tasted dipped in caramel. I'll do that next time.

Christina ~ She Runs, She Eats

Dolores said...

I actually found the appropriate sticks, but ran out and turned to toothpicks for my last half dozen cheesecake pops, with the same result you had.

Henny A. said...

These are great--little cheesecake Hors d'Ĺ“uvres. Nice job!!

T’s Treats said...

hehe..you know your a redneck.. I was rollin!! I love the caramel Idea, I thought of it..far too late..like as I was handing them out at work haha.. they look wonderful!! Great job!

fin said...

toothpicky and all, they're adorable... (i didn't get to coat mine all the way to the top either!)

i LOVE the idea of the caramel... though i'd want to do something other than chocolate with them - maybe nuts... or - yum - caramel and shortbread crumbs!

see -
see what you did to me???

Angela said...

I couldn't find the actual sticks either, so wound up using cocktail sticks which are (I guess) one step up from toothpicks :)

Your pops look great!!

Angela @ A Spoonful of Sugar