Cheesecake Pops!

My sister and I are going to try to make cake pops or cheesecake pops for my wedding shower. So, I thought I would do a trial run and see if they would turn out! Plus, a homemade cheesecake sounded really good and there was bound to be some leftovers for me to enjoy! So I started with the cheesecake...I used bakerella's recipe for plain jane cheesecake (which is a wonderful recipe by the way!) I overbaked it just a tad but it still tasted really good...and since I didn't want to have the overbaked edges in the cheesecake pops I got to snack on those as I was making them!I used a cookie scoop to try to make them all the same size...I also dipped my hands in water and wippped them on a damp towel periodically to keep the cheesecake from sticking to my hands as much. When I got them all rolled out they went into the freezer overnight to firm up. And I was going to sit down with the rest of this and a fork as a reward for all of my hard work!

BUT, the little voice in the back of my head said: REMEMBER! You need to fit in your wedding dress and you need to wear a bikini on your honeymoon! So... instead of eating the rest of the pan I only had a bite...................or two :)

Now for the finished product!

Some of them I put on the sticks first, dipped in chocolate, decorated, then stood in a styrofoam block to dry. These were pretty difficult...when they came right out of the freezer they were very difficult to get the sticks to go into them, but if I let them thaw enought to get the sticks in easily then they didn't do well in the chocolate because they were too soft. If I were to do these again I would put the sticks in them before I put them in the freezer. Then I tried dropping the ball into the chocolate, spreading the chocolate over it with a spoon, fising it out of the chocolate with the spoon and placing it on the wax paper, decorating, THEN putting the lolipop stick in it. This was easier, but not quite as cute. If I were to do this method I think I would leave the sticks off.

This was the best method in my opinion. I had a "resee's" style candy mold...I put melted blue candy chips in the mold then placed a cheesecake ball into it. Then I put the whole mold in the freezer to set up. When it was firm, I gently pulled it out of the mold, and holding the bottom half that was covered in "blue chocolate" I dipped the tops in white chocolate, swirled it around until the excess dripped off, then decorated immediatly. I was most pleased with these 1. because they were pretty easy and 2. because I think they turned out pretty darn cute too! But, it doesn't matter how you dip it...it all tastes the same....which was pretty good if I do say so myself!