2008-04-27

Jill O'Connor's Cheesecake Pops

It's the end of the month and time for the reveal of another Daring Bakers Challenge! (We have officially outgrown Blogger, so be sure to go check out the new Bat Cave.) These goodies really did emerge from the chaos that has been my kitchen this month. For two days, I saw only the lower half of my husband sticking out from underneath our kitchen sink. Eventually he gave up on the old faucet and we have a lovely new one (and I have a newfound respect for both my husband's mechanical and linguistic abilities), but I've yet to get everything put away and cleaned up.
The recipe this month was provided by Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasm and Deborah of Taste and Tell. The original really did present a challenge, requiring substitutions for cream cheese, eggs, heavy creamer, and potentially unsafe chocolate. My mad scientist plans for experimenting with multiple substitutions were derailed, but I did manage to make a mostly successful version with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and Ener-G Egg Replacer and a less successful attempt with the Tofutti and mashed banana. For both versions I used Silk Soy Creamer to replace the heavy cream and Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips for the chocolate coating. Both of them required an additional twenty minutes bake time. Although the banana version browned on top, it never did set up properly.
I was less nervous about my radical substitutions than I was about melting chocolate in a double boiler. It was something that I tried once before with really disastrous results. That was probably the most successful part of this Daring Bakers Challenge: overcoming my irrational fear of melting chocolate! (Twelve hours housebound to nurse Julia Child's classic French Bread? No problem! Chocolate chips in a bowl? Eek!) Since the banana pops never firmed up enough to survive a chocolate dip, I ended up with excess melted chocolate. (Horrors.) I remembered a post from Allergy Foodies about dipping pretzels in chocolate and ended up with a bonus treat for The Kid's lunch box. The official verdict on the Cheesecake Pops from my pre-school critic was "They have sprinkles!" and "Yummy!"

8 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Love the size and look of these pops. Yours are lovely.

Anonymous said...

These look great & I love your photo. My little one (3 on Friday) is also a huge fan of sprinkles, which she picked off, then peeled off the chocolate, and proceeded to eat the tofu cheese cake...kids are funny!

Lunch Buckets said...

It looks so pretty all dressed up in sprinkles and ribbons!

Sheltie Girl said...

You did a wonderful job on your pops. I'm so sorry the banana version never firmed up enough to shape. Did you eat the banana version as a baked custard? Lovely pictures too.

Natalie @ Gluten A Go Go

Elle said...

They have sprinkles and a lot of charm...great job doing all those substitutions of ingredients...and so they are truly Yummy! Lovely post.The top photo with the ribbons is one the the prettiest I've seen.

Nicole said...

You are so brave and a kitchen cooking genius! Great job!

Maggie said...

Too bad the banana cheesecake didn't set. Did you taste it? Even though the Tofutti tasted ok after bakng I think mine needed more flavorings to cover up the artifical taste of the soy cream cheese.

Barbara said...

Glad to hear you had success with the challenge. Your pops look wonderful.