Fudgy Brownie Cake Pop Recipe

While many of us associate cake pops as a Starbucks staple, the little treats-on-a-stick have a scope much wider than that — you might find them at baby showers, birthday parties, your favorite local cafe, or bakeries. Cake pops grew in popularity largely because they're comprised of leftover cake scraps, so any trimmings from cakes found an inventive way to be used up by way of handheld, bite-sized form. While developer Milena Manolova acknowledges the beauty of a classic cake pop, she was looking to change things up a bit: "I wanted the cake part to be a bit more dense, and what better choice than a fudgy brownie," she says. Other than having brownies as the base, these little treats are very similar to classic cake pops — an homage to an iconic treat, chocolate lover approved.

As Manolova prefers making these cake pops from scratch, this recipe starts with baking a pan of brownies. If you want to cut straight to the pop-making, however, you could use a boxed mix — to make the brownies taste bakery-made, simply swap the oil for butter. These pops are also a great way to use up any leftover brownies you may have on hand. They make for a decorative dessert and you can even color-coordinate them to fit the theme by using matching sprinkles.

The brownie batter is made from cocoa powder (Manolova prefers the Dutch-processed kind), flour, salt, granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and mini chocolate chips. To coat the cake pops, you'll use dark chocolate, white chocolate, sprinkles, and nuts.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Sift the cacao powder, flour, and salt.

In a bowl, whisk the granulated sugar and brown sugar together.

Add melted butter to the sugar mixture and whisk until it looks like wet sand.

Whisk in eggs and vanilla until smooth, about 30-40 seconds.

Fold in the sifted cacao/flour mixture and mix until no dry patches remain. It should be a smooth, shiny batter.

Mix in the mini chocolate chips.

Line an 8x8-inch baking dish with parchment paper.

Transfer the batter into the baking dish and bake on the middle rack for 22 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs but not wet.

When ready, remove the brownies from the oven and let cool slightly.

Once cooled enough to handle, use your hands to break the brownies down into crumbs.

Scoop some of the brownie crumbs with a tablespoon-sized scooper or a regular spoon and shape into balls, about 1 ½ inches in diameter.

Place the brownie balls in the fridge to firm up for 1 hour.

Melt the white and dark chocolate separately over a double boiler.

Transfer the melted chocolates to dishes deep enough for the brownie balls to submerge.

Take a lollipop stick and dip the tip (about ½ inch) in one of the melted chocolates, then insert it into a brownie ball. Repeat with the rest.

Place all the cake pops in the fridge for 5 to 10 minutes until the chocolate sets. This will prevent the brownie balls from sliding off the stick.

Take the cake pops out of the fridge and dip to coat the whole ball in the melted chocolate. Coat with sprinkles of your choice or chopped nuts.

Place the cake pops back in the fridge to set for about 10 minutes before serving and enjoying.

Changing up the flavor of these brownie cake pops starts with the brownie batter itself. There are any number of ingredients you can add to your brownies, including cayenne powder, ginger, instant coffee, nut butter, and Nutella (or a similar chocolate-hazelnut spread). You could also swap out the vanilla extract for almond or mint extract or even add a splash of bourbon to amplify the brownies' flavor. If you prefer a sweeter batter, liqueurs like Irish cream or amaretto could also be used. The semi-sweet chocolate chips can be replaced with white or milk chocolate ones, while chopped nuts or dried cherries would also make great mix-ins.

The coating, too, is something that can be tweaked to suit your preferences. The chocolate coating can be either dark, white, or milk chocolate as well as any combination of these, and you can even use a flavored chocolate bar as long as it's solid. (Note that a bar that gets its flavor from a creamy filling won't be solid enough to form the coating.) The final dip could also consist of shredded coconut, crushed cookie crumbs, smashed pretzels, or potato chips instead of nuts and sprinkles.

One problem you may run into when tweaking the dough is that mix-ins like nuts may make the brownies slightly drier than the ones in this recipe. In this case, you'll need to add a little moisture to get them to form into balls without falling apart. A very small amount of milk will do the trick, but you can also use this opportunity to enhance the brownies' flavor even after baking by adding melted chocolate, cream cheese, or even frosting just like in the kind of pops you make with leftover layer cake.

If you're concerned about aesthetics and want your cake pops to be identical in shape and size, a cookie or small ice cream scooper will ensure uniformity. You also need to refrigerate the pops before inserting the sticks, since this keeps them from being deformed when they have a hole poked in them. To help the sticks stand upright, dip the tips in melted chocolate before you stick them into the brownie balls, then chill them in place for at least five minutes. This will help the brownie balls stay put when they're dipped into the chocolate coating.