Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Covered Strawberries - Easy - SRC

 Welcome to another monthly installment of the Secret Recipe Club, where the members select and make any recipe they like from an assigned blog, then blog about it.  My assigned blog this month is Tami's Kitchen Table Talk.  Although Tami posts main course recipes, she also has seriously decadent  desserts, and I was quite happy to check out a few ... ya know, for scientific research.

Needed an excuse to try out these dip cups.

So I made a couple of Tami's desserts.  Then just couldn't choose which one I liked better.  I loved both.  So the tie-breaker had to be the photos.  That turned out to be much easier.   The Cheesecake-filled chocolate covered strawberries came out in focus almost as yummy as they tasted.

Tami's recipe is so simple there wasn't any need for quantities.  But as long as I made a couple of small changes I tossed measurements in, no extra charge. Tami used a ready-to-eat cheesecake filling. I had some whipped cream cheese leftover from a bagel brunch, so a little powdered sugar plus lemon juice whisked in created a nice clone.

Somehow I managed to blip over the part about first dipping the strawbs in melted chocolate, so that step was omitted.  But the end result is so pretty that I think I'll make the same mistake next time I have a hankerin' for these babies.  Thank you, Tami!

Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Covered Strawberries - Easy - Secret Recipe Club
adapted from Tami's Kitchen Table Talk
Yield: 10 filled strawberries

1/2 cup whipped cream cheese
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbl. fresh lemon juice
10 large strawberries, rinsed and dried well
Melting chocolate

Place a sheet of wax paper on a plate (something I forgot to do), then place the strawberries on top of the wax paper. Cut the tops off the strawberries.  Carefully scoop out some of the center with a grapefruit knife, avoiding nicking the sides or the cutting all the way through.  Eat the centers.  Set the tops aside in case you want to pop them back on later.  Then discard them when you change your mind.  Set the strawberries aside; those you'll need later.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice.

Clip a small corner from a plastic sandwich bag and push a star tip through from the inside.  Spoon the cream cheese mixture into the bag.  Holding the bag closed, pipe the mixture into each strawberry.  You don't really need the tip, but the strawberries look a lot prettier topped with swirled filling.

Note the window reflected in the spoon.  No photoshopping, BTW.

Nuke the melting chocolate for a minute.  Stir, then repeat the nuking every 30 seconds until the chocolate is completely melted.

Really should have done this over waxed paper.  Oh, well.

Spoon the melted chocolate into a fresh bag with a tiny corner snipped off.  Squiggle the chocolate over the strawberries.  Pop the berries into the fridge to set the chocolate up to a couple of hours.

Transfer the strawberries onto something decorative just before serving. 

Disclaimer - because this recipe is part of an online cooking group, the linked recipes below might not be kosher.