Cheesecake Pops

Daring Bakers challenge #2- completed!  This month's challenge was hosted by Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms , who chose cheescake pops as our recipe.  I went through a phase a couple of years ago when I tried (for a few weeks) to make a good cheesecake at home and ended up giving up in frustration and haven't thought about attempting one again so I was a little bit nervous about this month's challenge.  It turns out that I really didn't need to be as the batter for the cake comes together really simply and then bakes at one temperature (previous recipes I've used have called for starting at a higher temp and then dropping the oven) and didn't have a complicated cooling process.  The most complicated thing  was wrapping my springform pan with aluminum foil to make it watertight.*

So- the cake batter only took about 10 minutes to make and it went into the oven for about 55 minutes until the cake was set (but it had not turned golden brown but remained a sort of ghostly white).  I took the cake out, let it cool on the counter for an hour and then popped it in the fridge.  After chilling the cake, I formed it into little balls of 1.5oz (45g) as I thought the 2oz. balls the recipe called for were just a bit too big and then skewered them with cut up straws for the pops to add some color (and because I had no idea where I could by lollypop sticks).  I did have some issues when I tried to dip the frozen pops in the chocolate as my chocolate just wouldn't get thin enough. It was the consistency of a thick pudding and therefore coated the pops a bit too thickly for my taste. I rolled some of the pops in crushed graham crackers with a bit of sugar and coconut, as the crust is one of my favorite parts of the cheesecake and I was a bit sad not to have one.

The pops turned out really prettily but I have to say I didn't love them. They were good- perfectly adequate but not fabulous. The cheesecake had a great smooth texture but seemed to lack depth of flavor and the thick chocolate coating overpowered the cheesecake on the first bite. I don't think that I will make this recipe again, but I am really glad that I tried it and I now know cheesecake is not beyond by power, but maybe something I should leave to the pros nonetheless. If you'd like the recipe check out Elle or Deborah's blogs.

Update: I just ate one of the leftover cheesecake pops (I made them Friday and now it's Sunday) and I have to say that they have improved with time.  On Friday I thought they were missing part of that essential cheesecake flavor but it seems like two days in the fridge helped it to develop.  Maybe my problem was serving them the day they were made instead of giving the cake some time to chill- have any of my fellow Daring Bakers experienced this?

* I decided to only make half a recipe as I had no idea who I would feed 40 cheesecake pops too. I took Elle's advice and decided to measure a smaller pan by the amount of water it would hold but the water immediately started pouring (I was using a springform pan). Before baking the cheesecake, I double wrapped the pan in aluminum foil till about 3/4 way up the sides which worked out fine- just be really careful when you take the pan out of the water bath if you do this, as some water may accumulate in the bottom of the aluminum and could pour out and burn you.