Matt April 27th, 2008

As Rebecca wrote, we joined the Daring Bakers this month and the first challenge was making these cheesecake pops.

As a first challenge, it was a pretty interesting one. I don’t think either of us has had much experience making the candy aspect of this recipe (coating them), though we have both made cheesecake before.

My cheesecake took a bit longer to cook than the stated recipe but otherwise it came out… ok. I say just okay because it wasn’t really cakey/crumbly like a real cheesecake would be. However, after looking at Rebecca’s pops I think I’ll count my blessings for that.

Forming the cheesecake pops was the most trying part of this recipe. Even though my cheesecake was refrigerated overnight and par-frozen, within seconds of spooning a glob into my hand the cheesecake was like a semi-solid pudding; after 2-3 pops I could no longer form balls in my hand and had to wash my hands off and start again. I had originally had the idea of doing different shapes - squares, triangles, tetrahedrons (I kid…) - but I quickly gave up that idea. However a previous idea I had, to insert maraschino cherries into the pops, did pan out. I bought a small jar, drained them and froze them, then inserted them into the spoonful of cheesecake and formed the ball around them, inserting the pop stick into the center when I finished.

One of my other plans was to coat the cheesecake in a few different toppings (white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, colored chocolate) but nature conspired against me and my lack of patience and thanks to an un-air conditioned room and temperatures in the 80s I soon settled with just one coating - a simple milk chocolate to which I added a few spoonfuls of nutella.

The chocolate coating took no time at all to firm up, which resulted in quite a few dipping/sprinkling missteps on my end. I found that if I added the coating too soon it would sort of melt off or go under the chocolate and too late and I only got a few sprinkles to actually stick. I’m chocking this up to future experience and hope to be better prepared next time.

After taste testing a pop I decided they were not for me. I’m a big sissy when it comes to cheesecake and without a hearty helping of fruit topping and crumbly crust, well, I just can’t appreciate them as much. My pops were brought into work the next day and all demolished in no time flat and praise seemed to come from everyone. They particularly enjoyed the cherries in the center and marveled at how much time they must have taken to make. If they only knew!

So, a big thanks goes out to the Daring Bakers for letting us join your crew! We look forward to whatever culinary knuckleballs you have in store for us in the months to come.

• Daring Bakers , Food
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