Cheesecake Lollipops
As you might know there were a lot of Cheesecake Lollipops recipes floating around the food blogosphere lately, and sometimes too much of a good thing isn’t too much at all. So I decided to give it a shot as well. Outside of the fact that I adore cheesecake, the thought of having it bite-sized on a stick just made it that much more desirable (it’s really the little things in life that make me happy - literally).
I got this recipe from the blog Use Real Butter which was selected from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey. It ended up working out very well and was a big hit with my sisters and mother. I didn’t end up making the entire recipe (which makes 30-40 pops) as I knew they would go to waste. So I divided it by 4 and converted everything to a 1/4 amount (Quick trick: Measurement Conversion Calculator ).
I followed the recipe exactly until it got to the chocolate dipping stage. A main part that I enjoy about cheesecake in general is the graham crust. So once I had made the cheesecake balls and put them on their sticks (prior to putting them in the freezer), I covered them in graham crumb - which I got from crumpling up a ready made pie crust. You can see in the pictures to the right. It was then that I went back to the recipe… froze them, melted chocolate, and then sprinkled them with these adorable little string of pearls sugars
Recipe: Cheesecake Lollipops
from - Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
makes 30–40 pops
5 8-oz pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream
boiling water as needed
thirty-forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 lb chocolate, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable shortening
assorted decorations: 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.
