1,000 Monkeys

David writes me a lot of checks.  Because he works, and I don’t.  And because USAA makes it sooo easy to deposit checks at home! I <3 you, USAA!

Anyway, David entertains himself (OK and me, too) by writing random things in the “memo” section of said checks.  The last one he wrote was “For 1,000 Monkeys.”  So of course, I had to do SOMETHING to pay up!

Since the sew talented Michelle commissioned me to make brownie pops for Henry’s birthday, and I hadn’t yet tried my new favorite brownie recipe in pop format, I knew just what I had to do.

I made the brownies, then immediately dumped them into the food processor and blended ’em up.  They didn’t need anything added to make them “ball-able” – they’re fudgy and gooey enough on their own.  Then I made a bunch of tablespoon-sized balls, and half-tablespoon sized balls.  Put ’em in the freezer.

Then I melted some chocolate almond bark, and drew some arms, tails and feet on parchment paper, like so:

Then I stuck those in the freezer for a bit.

Meanwhile, I got my banana Runts lined up, and cut some brown Reece’s Pieces in half.  See:

Then I pulled my balls out of the freezer.  Why are you laughing?!

I dunked the small ones in the chocolate almond bark and put ’em on a cookie rack to dry, but made sure to stick on the two Reece’s pieces while the chocolate was still wet.  Monkeys gotta have ears, right?

Then I put the bigger balls on lollipop sticks, and once the small ones were dry, I dunked the big ones in the chocolate almond bark, stood ’em up on a styrofoam block and immediately plopped a small one on top.  This made heads and bodies, see?  Then I carefully used the rest of the melted chocolate bark as glue for the arms, legs, tails and bananas.   At this point, I had faceless monkeys like this:

Don’t judge my messy monkeys.  They were just for mine and David’s entertainment, so I didn’t go to great lengths to make them smooth and perfect.  Mmmk?

But they definitely needed some faces, so I used some yellow and black candy melts for mouths and eyes, and black sprinkles for tiny little nostrils.  Voila!

Your demented friend,

Becki

Tagged as: Bakerella, Brownie Pops, candy melts, cocoa brownies, monkey pops, monkeys, pop star