My dear future kids,

I heard from our neighbor’s daughter, (insert name here), that you’re envious of her mom’s cheesecake pops and hope that I’d make some myself. I regret to inform you that your wish won’t be granted anytime soon.

You see, when mommy started her food blog, she also joined this spanking network called The Daring Bakers. Every month, there’s a challenge members have to complete and come month end, they have to post up about it. Mommy’s first challenge were cheesecake pops. Remember those really yummy Toblerone mini cheesecakes I brought to school on your 5th birthday? Well I thought I’d ace my first challenge since I’ve been making cheesecakes since I was 12. Halfway, I realized that I was oh so wrong.

I didn’t have a roasting pan bigger than 10″ so I used a small wok instead and placed a little rock so that it errr wouldn’t rock.

I followed every instruction and measured to death. Based on the recipe, the cheesecake cooks up between 35-45 minutes. This is how my cheesecake looked like in 30 minutes (and her thermometer was accurate):

Bibingka or NY Cheesecake? Hmmmm

I had to scrape off a thicker than the usual (NY cheesecake) top to reveal what’s underneath. When I was balling up after chilling overnight, everything seems to be melting off still! Mommy blames the summer heat in the tropical islands for this! This made coating six hours after balling up a PAIN! The choco dip recipe that called for 1 pound chocolate + 2 tbsp. shortening was similar to your favorite (which I hope you’ll cut down pretty soon) Nutella spread when it’s supposed to be “dippable”! *sigh* After coating 8 balls, I slept everything off and thought that “shells” were better options.

Shells and sous chef to the rescue!

So are you ready to see what mommy and her sous chef made? heeeheeeheee

1 of 8-1.5 ounce cheesecake pops coated with white chocolate and sprinkles (to match my blog’s theme LOL)

My sous chef’s project/artwork

Ha’vd

Is your milk tooth starting to rock just by looking at it? Oh yes they should cause they’re sweeeeeeet! Your uncle Richard says it tastes like CHEESE while the sous chef almost got an asthma attack after half of 1 .5 oz pop!

So my loves, until mommy finds a good cheesecake and dip recipe to work with, you’d have to settle with my carrot cake and rocky road bars.

Love,

Mom

ps. While I hope to meet you in the future, I hope that the future isn’t very soon!

Cheesecake Pops
Makes 30 – 40 Pops

Ingredients:
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

Procedure:
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.