Sunday 27 April 2008

Daring Baker's Challenge - Cheesecake Pops



Yes, I have joined yet another baking group! This time it is the turn of the Daring Bakers - a blog set up by Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. We (Now I count myself as a Daring Baker!) are a group of 800+ bakers from all over the world who in secret bake from exactly the same recipe over the course of a month. On a certain day (which for April 08 happens to be today) we all post about our experiences.

The mission for this month was cheesecake pops chosen by Elle from Feeding my Enthusiasm. And what a great choice it was...The recipe can also be found on her site

The basic principle of cheesecake pops are that they are a bite sized morsel of loveliness aka cheesecake dipped into chocolate - at which point the imagination can run riot - We were encouraged to think of multitudes of options for dipping the chocolate covered cheesecake into - i.e. nuts, sprinkes, sugar, biscuits crumbs. I went for strawberry flavoured chocolate that has been crying out to be used up.

The instructions for the cheesecake were simple enough and it came together just as expected - It id take slightly longer to cook than the 35 minutes we wer told but nothing major - and the taste...? Gorgeous! I defy anyone not to eat spoon after spoon of the yummy cheesecake mixture which might explain why I don't think I had quite as many pops as I should.

I left the cheesecake mix overnight to harden and got my husband to roll it into balls the next day - I then left the balls in the freezer for 5 days. My balls don't seem to have been as hard as other bakers seemed to be judging from their blogs and it was quite difficult to keep the sticks in (I had cheated though and used straws instead of lollipop sticks as I am trying to economize).

I didn't dip the whole pop into chocolate as the strawberry chocolate can be quite sickly - I still have to admit I prefer the cheesecake without the chocolate.

The Scores and the verdict:

Husband:
The cheesecake 9 out of 10.
With the chocolate 9 out of 10.

Moi:
The cheesecake 9 out of 10 (it would be 10 but how could I score something that fattening a perfect 10?)
With the chocolate 7 out of 10

Altogether a very successful stab at my first Daring Baker's challenge - I'll definately be back for next month!

14 comments:

Michele said...

I love your scoring system! I would agree with you... I loved the cheesecake without the chocolate more than I loved it with the chocolate (but that didn't stop me from eating them!).

Yours look great!

xoxo

Michele
http://abigcupoftea.blogspot.com/

Kristen said...

Great job on your first challenge! I love the strawberyy chocolate, I too prefer my cheesecake all alone though. Welcome to the Daring Bakers!

Tammy said...

hmm, have to disagree - I found the cheesecake a bit bland without the chocolate. A fun challenge though and yours look gorgeous

Big Boys Oven said...

Bautiful pops! I love your fondant ckaes! so awesome crafted!

Madam Chow said...

Welcome to the DBs! And a 9 out of 10 score is great at my house, so congratulations!
Madam Chow
http://mzkitchen.com/

Anne said...

They are simply lovely! I on the other hand find it better coated with chocolate :)

Deborah said...

I liked it best without the chocolate as well, but that strawberry chocolate sounds delicious! Great job on your first challenge!

Casa Costello said...

Thank you everyone! What a community the Daring Bakers are! I have really enjoyed my first challenge - roll on May!

Lunch Buckets said...

Welcome to the Daring Bakers!

Chris said...

GREAT job for challenge #1. These are adorable!

T’s Treats said...

hehe Love the scores ;) and strawberry chocolate sounds yummy!! Great job! COngrats on your first challenge!

Katie said...

Pink, my favorite color!

Susan @ SGCC said...

Congrats on completing your first challenge! This was a fun one. I wish we could make cheesecake every month. ;) I love the strawberry flavored chocolate. What a good idea! That pink is so pretty!

Megan said...

Your pops look great. Welcome to the Daring Bakers. Great first challange.