Cake Pops and chocolate bars...the breakfast of champions!

I am a regular stalker of this awesome food blog, Bakerella. I've been wanting to make cake pops for a while now and decided this was the weekend to do it!! You can check out Bakerella's blog post for instructions. I wanted to make some pumpkins and ghosts or skeletons, but unfortunately the experience took me in a different direction. I bought some edible food writers at my local craft store...and they sucked!! They didn't write! UGH! I even had my poor husband messing with the pens and they either glopped all over the place or just didn't write. So my pumpkins ended up with half written faces and not looking too pretty...

One actually looks like he got into a pumpkin fight and has a pumpkin black eye. My white cake pops did not dip well or smoothly, for that matter. And my writers didn't work, so no cute skull faces. So I just redipped them and covered them with Halloween sprinkles (thanks mom for the sprinkles! they saved the day!!)



Despite the fact that I struggled with these for the better part of the afternoon, everybody loved them. I had a bunch of friends and their kids over Sunday and served them. I had everybody guessing, especially the adults, how I made them. My son told me they were WAY better than cupcakes...I asked him why and my daughter chimed in...because they are on a STICK silly!!! Oh...of course! Everything is better on a stick!!

I also made these, chocolate chip cheesecake bars. Oh my, these were a little slice of heaven.


They were so goooooooood. I even used real butter, no saving calories on margarine this time! My husband loves chocolate cream cheese brownies I have a recipe for, so I decided to try something different. He loved them, I loved them, my kids loved them, the neighbors loved them. It is definitely a recipe i'll make again! I got the recipe from a food blog called Dozen Flours. I want to try every recipe on her blog. Seriously!!


Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars
by Elinor Klivans (author) & Kirsten Strecker (photographer)

Crust
1 & 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter a 9″-square baking pan. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides. Butter the parchment paper.

Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips. Press crust mixture into bottom of pan. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool.
Cookie Dough
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Using an electric mixer, mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Filling
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended. Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30-35 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire rack.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. (Tip: put the chocolate chips into a zipper bag and heat on 50% power for a few minutes. Cut the corner off the bag and squeeze the bag to make drizzling less messy). Use a teaspoon to drizzle chocolate over top of bars. Cool bars in pan completely, about an hour. (Stick the bars in the freezer for 5 minutes to set quickly if you're in a hurry).

Using the edges of the parchment paper, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars (clean the knife after each cut) and serve.