Daring Bakers: Cheesecake Pops

Every so often something pops into my head as being so common sensicle that I immediately dismiss it because it's so obviously a good idea that someone else has done it and done it better.

Time travel to 1987: Enter the cheeseypop (a frozen cheesecake lolly) into my head...and immediately dismissed in the aforementioned way.

Time jump to 2008 and the April 2008 Daring Bakers challenge, co-hosted by Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell, Cheesecake pops. Chocolate-coated cheesecake balls on a stick.

Okay...my cheeseypops weren't choco-coated, but the idea is the same. A bite-sized cheesecake portion, frozen onto a stick...perfect for parties.

It's like the dessert version of cocktail weenies...except there isn't any dipping sauce...well there is, but it's frozen onto the cheesecake.

Our lovely hosts let us run free with the recipe to a certain extent--we could flavour it as we wanted and decorate it as we wanted. The only limitations were keeping the cheesecake untinted and keep the lolly to a two-ounce size.

OOPS...on both counts...sort of...

I don't know why, but I've been thinking of pina coladas a lot lately. Maybe it's a latent desire to be somewhere...anywhere...where I can just laze about with a book or two. I even went so far as to buy a frozen can of pina colada stuff...which I intend to use in something...possibly a drink.

So, apart from the rum, the two primary flavours are coconut and pineapple. I've never seen coconut cream cheese in the shops, but I have seen it in pineapple Needless to say, instead of buying a regular, cream cheese-flavoured brick for the challenge, I bought a pineapple-flavoured tubblette of cream cheese. Heck, it saves me from looking for pineapple flavouring. But instead of it being titanium white, it's more of a winter white--a creamy-peachy colour. Well, I'd never bought it before, so I didn't know...oh well...at least it wasn't pink like the strawberry or blue like the blueberry (or, I suspect green, like the chive flavoured) kinds.

The original recipe called for five bricks of cream cheese. Since I wasn't making it for a party and I don't have room in my freezer for 35 cheeseypops, I scaled the recipe down to one brick's worth. It was quite easy, since I pretty much do most things in grams and mls. I poured it into my smallest ceramic round baking thingie and it baked up really nicely--it took about 35 minutes to set properly. I also made a mental note that this quantity is perfect for a small cheesecake for two-four people.

When time came to make the little balls, I didn't have a two-ounce scoop and none of the shops I checked in had them. Knowing they had to be walnut-sized I got out my teaspoon and started scooping balling and impaling. I wound up with 12 lollies from one brick...which tells me they were a wee bit too small, but it just means there are more "servings."

I found stabbing each orb with a lolly stick oddly therapeutic. Maybe there's a hidden acupuncturist inside me, maybe in a previous life I was one of Vlad's armed guards. To my surprise, the sticks stuck and didn't tip to the side--nor did the cheesecake slide off when lifted.

After a couple of hours in the freezer, I dipped them in melted dark chocolate and then plunged them into bowl of shredded coconut, left over from the March Challenge, and popped them back into the freezer.

Yummy yummy yummy...and the perfect size (for me). The pineapple wasn't too strongly flavoured, but it was nice with the coconut.

Which got me to wondering...what about cheesey kebabs? Two little cheesecake blobs on either side of a strawberry or pineapple chunks...frozen, of course... or what about doing these with savoury garlic cream cheese (I do like the garlic bonbons at my favourite chocolatrie)...

Nah, it's probably been done before...

If you're interested in making Cheesecake Pops, read Lemon Pi's post (I really like the little lolly holders).

To read what the other DBs did with this challenge, take a meander through our blogroll.

cheers!
jasmine