SweetDreams: Cheesecake Pops

One of my really close friends is getting married and she wanted to have cake pops at her wedding. After brainstorming she decided those were to be cheesecake pops. I had never made these before but I figured with a little alteration to my standard cheesecake batter, we should come up with batter that should stick to a stick :) They actually turned out quite well and I am very proud of them. Here's my adventure:

To start off, we need cheesecake batter. The one I use is very simple and goes as follows (depending on the size of your pops, it can make somewhere between 50 and 100):
2 1/2 pound of cream cheese (Philadelphia or any other kind will work)
2 cups of sugar
1/4 cup of flour
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon of salt
5 whole eggs (i tend to lean towards a large sized egg)
2 egg yolks

Just combine all ingredients into a bowl and mix away. ***Note, it is much easier to mix when the cream cheese has room temperature***
I use a standard hand mixer most of the time but if you have a fancy KitchenAid standmixer or anything similar that will do as well.

Set your oven to 325 degrees and let it preheat. When you are done mixing, grease 2 8x8 cake pans with butter and fill about half way with the cheesecake batter. Put one pan in the oven at a time but make sure to put the cake pan in a larger one filled with water beforehand; preferably boiling water. ***Note, this will prevent the cheesecake batter from getting dry towards the outside***
Bake for approximately 45 minutes, remove from water and let it cool. **While this cools, you can put in the second pan**

Once everything has cooled, cover with aluminum foil and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight.

Now we are ready to make the pops.
All you will need is the following: wax paper, a baking sheet or other tray to assemble the sticks, lollipop sticks (which I found at Michael's craft store, a spoon, and your cheesecake.

Now, this WILL get messy... Use the spoon and take out as much cheesecake as you wish for the size of the pops to be. Roll the cheesecake in you hand until you form a ball and place on the wax paper lined tray. Once you have used all of the cheesecake and made as many pops as you prefer, stick 'em with a lollipop stick. ***Do not push them all the way through, go about 3/4 of the way***

Once done, pop em in the freeze for about 90 minutes or longer, until they are solid. Now you are ready for the final step: dipping and decorating.

I used vanilla flavored candy melts on these but you can use chocolate as well (I found that chocolate is a little harder to handle than the candy melts i also found at Michaels's. They have them in every possible color!!!)

For this final step what you will need is:

Candy Melts (by Wilton) or chocolate of your choice

Sprinkles, graham cracker crumbs, or anything else you wish to decorate them with

I melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals to make sure it does not burn. When all solid pieces of chocolate are melted, stir and dunk the entire pop into the chocolate ***Note, I like using a cup because it is deep enough to dunk the entire pop into it*** Make sure to wait for all excess chocolate to drip off and then either lay back onto the wax lined tray if you want the pop to be upside down or stick into a stirofoam cube to hold up and let dry.

If you wish to add sprinkled, now would be the time before the coating dries completely and all your sprinkles would fall right back off. If you wish to add graham crackers or anything of the like, you would also do this now as well. Once the coating has dried, you can either package them or, do like me, and add another element of candy coating to them. I did

this by using a piping bag and just going back and forth over the pops: