Tuesday, June 28, 2011

La La... Lollies!

For the past few days, I've been playing with five very beautiful children. Of course, I'm biased; those five children came from the wombs of my sister and me. Since I think they are all as sweet as can be, I decided to do  a fun little project: Homemade lollipops.

The concept is really quite simple. I went to Michael's and spent only $11 on more than enough supplies (it could have been cheaper, but I got the fancy foil wrappers...). And as an added bonus -- Teachers get 15% off! Whippee! I purchased the following:

  • a bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers
  • a bag of old fashioned cherry hard candy
  • lollipop sticks
  • parchment paper
  • fancy colored foil candy wrappers
For our first set of lollipops, the kids and I arranged the Jolly Ranchers in rows of three, whatever colors/flavors we wanted, on parchment paper. Then we put the tray in the oven for about 7 minutes at 275 degrees. When I pulled them out, we stuck in the sticks quickly before the candy re-hardened. 

I put them in the fridge to cool faster while we worked on our second set of lollipops. This time, we put different colored candies in plastic snack bags, and I crushed the pieces a few times (with a wrench because I couldn't find a hammer at my sister's house...). 


Then we all arranged our candy pieces mosaic style on the parchment paper. Elena and I made flowers, Micah made a blobby man, and Christian made a colorful pile of something-or-other. 


Those melted for a few minutes in the oven; then we admired our delicious handiwork. 

Ahhh yes, vibrant globs of un-uniform candy. Simply perfect. 

While they were cooling, we taste-tested our first lollipops. They were, as expected, absolutely delicious. 




(The babies got a little lick too.)

We wrapped the remaining lollipops in colorful foil to save for later (or, as I encouraged, gift-giving). 


It was a quick and easy, inexpensive, undeniably and deliciously fun afternoon activity. And in between licks of her lollipop, my niece exclaimed, "This is the BEST day ever!" (The boys were too busy licking their lollipops to say anything at all). 





1 comment:

Rob L said...

Sounds and looks awesome.