Caviar and Codfish

I’m usually a good Daring Baker. I may wait until the very last minute to do a challenge but I’ll get it done and, more importantly, get it done right—which means no cheating on the recipe rules.

But not this time. See, this go-round I got lazy and by Saturday night when we got back from food shopping and I realized I forgot to get lollipop sticks, I threw caution to the wind and decided to make “Cheesecake Balls” not “Cheesecake Pops.”

Maybe I should have planned better. Maybe I should’ve went to the craft store earlier in the day and bought the sticks. But life, as it tends to do, got in the way.

Our Saturday was spent at Shadfest, the annual festival in Lambertville, NJ honoring the shad that swims through the Delaware come springtime. Jim, Champ, and I lazily traipsed around the festival—not thinking about Daring Bakers for one moment—eating shad wraps and taking photos. By the time we got home, tired and happy, I almost threw the whole notion of cheesecake anythings in the trash.

But then I got a second wind and decided to make the balls. The cheesecake was surprisingly easy. I divided the recipe into fifths, because one can only take so much cheesecake. Everything was whipped up in cute little bowls since the ingredients were so fractioned off (.04 cup of flour can’t really mess up your kitchen). However, once the cheesecake came out of the oven, I was already tired, and didn’t want to bake anymore (but, of course, wanted dessert for the night). I rolled the balls up too soon—they were bumpy and quite ugly—and then froze them solid while I continued to finish dinner and get a bit zonked on some good wine. A little bit later, I tipsily dipped the balls in chocolate, threw on some sprinkles, and devoured some immediately, watching an episode of Entourage. I didn’t, silly me, even take a picture.

Luckily, there were some left over (still on the plate, which I threw in the fridge before bed, you know, for food safety) and I took some snaps this morning, trying not to get chocolate on my new MacBook.

The recipe for the real cheesecake pops is here and here, at the lovely sites of this month’s Daring hosts, Deborah from Taste and Tell, and Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms. And of course, you can find all the links to the other (better) Daring Bakers here.