Lollipop Lollipop Oh Homemade Lollipops, Lollipops!

Inspired once again byMarie over at Make and Takes, we attempted to make our own lollipops a few weeks ago. Visit her blog for the ingredients and instructions if you're interested in trying this out for yourself - it really is easy!

Today, CKB is attending the ordination to the office of elder of a good friend and we are on our own at home (w/my parents here, of course, but w/o CKB for a whole Saturday). He will return home late tonight, Lord willing, and then head off again tomorrow morning for an appointment at a church about 3 hrs. away. Miss Baby isn't quite ready for that trip - it entails all of us getting up at 6 a.m. and out the door by 7 a.m. - driving 3 hrs. - being there a couple of hours, then driving back 3 hrs. It makes for a long day for us "big folks" and no doubt would be pretty rough at this stage in the game what w/Miss Baby eating every couple of hours and so forth. We'll see next month if we're ready for the trip.

So, today is Saturday - no school for the older children = a little more "free time" for me and a chance to share our lollipop experience with y'all.

So, after reading about making our own lollipops, we decided it would be a fun project for the children - granted, I had to do most of the work due to the extremely hot nature of the lollipop liquid, but they got to reap the benefits afterward :)

So, here we go - in pictures:


Getting the lollipop mixture up to the right temp...almost there!



Preparing the mold - by the way, best to make sure you have cooking spray that is NOT butter flavored for this - oops!



Preparing for some "rustic" lollipops...hmm, my cookie sheet looks a little "rustic" - where's my Brillo pad???



Lollipops underway...yes, I'm a messy pourer - give me a break, it's my first attempt at this!



And the rustic pops....and yes, I goofed and poured lollipop liquid on BOTH ends of one of the sticks...maybe I did it on purpose...just maybe it's a special Valentine lollipop...hmmmm? Maybe.



Taste testers preparing to try the pops....



And the verdict is in...Success!



Things I learned from our first lollipop making experience.

1. One mold is NOT nearly enough. I tried reheating the mixture after these first 6 pops had set and the lollipop mixture was not a pretty sight (or smell) after the reheat - oh well.

1a. In the first picture you may notice a larger pot in the background - a small saucepan worked a lot better - with the large saucepan my candy thermometer wouldn't measure the temp. since the amount of liquid wasn't very high in that big pot.

2. Make sure to have NON-butter flavored cooking spray on hand.

3. Don't use wax paper under the rustic pops - some of them seemed to become "one with the wax paper" and had a waxy film on them when I peeled them off. I messaged Marie about this and she said she now uses foil - I will try that next time and/or parchment paper.

4. Putting a plastic sleeve and pretty ribbon on makes them look really nice and ready for sharing with friends! A few of the lollipops wanted to "stick" to the plastic sleeves - we solved this by dipping them in sugar first and then inserting them into the sleeves. What's a little more sugar anyway?




5. This was fun and I definitely would like to try it again...sometime...when I have some spare time...maybe next Christmas...after I get more molds...maybe...

Hope you enjoyed reading about our lollipop making experience! Now, back to Miss Baby and getting some things done around here on our Saturday at home.