V-day Brownie Pops

For the most part, I've shyed away from sending sweets in my hubby's care packages. With Christmas, they were all showered with more sugar than they could eat over there! Instead, he mostly asks for office supplies or healthy snacks such as granola or dried fruit. Since Valentine's day was this month, I decided to make an exception, and create a special treat for the hubby to share with his co-workers.

Cake pops have become my latest obcession. My hubby mailed this book to me for Christmas, and I've been crazy about them ever since! I love all of the fun, interesting designs you can make. My goal is to progress enough that I can have some really cute, animal shaped ones for my daughter's second birthday in a couple of months. But for now, I mostly focus on the plain, dipped and sprinkeled cake pops on a stick.

Since I had some brownies frozen and ready to be used for a special treat, I decided to make hubby's cake pops with brownie bits!

Directions:

 Crumble the room temperature, bakes brownies into little pieces and then quickly form them into small balls. Lay them out on parchment paper. My goal was to work as quick as possible, so that the brownie balls wouldn't wam up too much. (With regular cake pops, you mix icing in at this stage, but the brownies were gooey enough that they didn't need the extra help).

 

Then, place them in the fridge for awhile, until they became nice and firm. While you wait, set out the rest of your supplies:

Sticks

Candy melts

Sprinkles

Baggies and twistie ties

Styrofoam block with pre-cut holes (candy sticks work best to cut the holes)

Bowl for melted candy melts

Bowl for spinkles

When the brownie cake balls feel firm the the touch, take them out and set them on the counter. (If you have a large batch, you might want to take a few out of the fridge at a time, so that they stay nice and cool).

Next, melt the candy coating at 30 second intervals, being careful not too overcook. You want a nice, deep bowl for this, so that the pops can be covered completely in one dip (more dips cause the balls to break into pieces).

Dip the end of each stick into a bit of the candy coating, and then insert in a brownie cake ball. Stand the brownie pops in a piece of styrofoam with pre-cut holes.

After the sticks are inserted, you might want to give them a few minutes to harden inside of the brownie ball.

Next comes the fun part! Quickly dip each brownie pop into the candy coating in one smooth motion. Carefully twirl the pop to get off any excess coating. Cover with sprinkles, and then return to styrofoam block to dry!

Tada!

They're messy, but they taste amazing! Now I just need to work on creating a cleaner, more refined, finished product.

After the cake pops dry completely, cover them with special treat baggies, or saran wrap, and tie with twist ties. Share and enjoy!