Don't let Pigeon eat the Cake Pops!

Hi. How's it going? I'm fine, thanks for asking! So... I was asked to be a celebrity reader for my daughter's second grade class. 


The PTA requests that, if chosen, I am to read a few books and fill up a 30min time slot. My daughter said that the good parent readers do "other stuff, too." If I was a really good parent reader, for example, I'll include an activity. And if I was a really, really good parent reader, I'll provide a snack. GOODGOOGAMOOGA!?! I took the bait and decided to be the really, really good parent. (Or the really, really stupid/trying too hard one?)


Choosing the reading material was simple. We love Mo Willems! He's the Emmy award winning children's author of Knuffle Bunny, Leonardo the Terrible Monster,  Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Cat the Cat, Elephant and Piggie and our personal favorite, PIGEON! I chose a few Pigeon books and came up with a fun illustration activity. 


Now all I needed was an idea for a snack. Pigeon loves hot dogs, but, um... I'm not bringing in 23 hot dogs. Yikes! And then I saw a picture on flicker... it was a PIGEON CAKE POP! Awesome! Next I watched this tutorial:

and bought the following ingredients. I found everything but the cake mix, frosting (although they do sell Wilton cake products) and wax paper at Michaels Craft Store:  


2 boxes o' cake mix
2 tubs o' whipped frosting (whipped is easier to work with for this project)
2 bags o' blue baking chips (for candy making)
1 bag o' lollipop sticks 
1 box o' candy eyes  


1 pkg of fondant - for the beak
yellow gel based food coloring

wax paper 
STYROFOAM PLANK! (Trust me. You will want this. It will make your life much, much easier)



Beak directions:  Cut a 1" hunk out of the fondant block and place in a microwave safe container. Nuke for 10 seconds. Next, put it in a ziplock baggy and add a 1/4tsp of yellow gel based food coloring. Work the food coloring into the fondant. Remove and roll into a skinny snake. Cut into 3cm pieces and roll again. fold the super tiny snake together and voila! Beaks! Let them sit and harden (only takes a few minutes) before putting onto the freshly dipped pops. 





...and voila! Cake pops! This recipe yields about 30+ pops.  


True, this is a simple process. It is also true that this is a time consuming, pain in the <expletive deleted>. Oh well. I know the kids will love them... and all of that confectionary work will be will be devoured faster than they can say Mo Willems!