Back 2 Happy Mom: Busy Hands: Homemade Lollipops

These were so quick to put together and make.
The kids loved that they had just made their own candy!

Homemade Lollipops!

What you need:
- Jolly Ranchers hard candies, unwrapped
- mason jar lids or cookie cutter shapes
- lollipop sticks
- cooking spray (for goodness sake, please don't use olive oil or some such flavor, your kids will never forgive you!)
- parchment lined baking/cookie sheet

Yesterday the kids were out in the pool since it was almost 100 degrees out and that was the only sane place to be, so I brought the necessities out to them and let them build their own before taking it in to bake.
My son had a friend over, hence the 4th lid... and mommy wanted to try make one too! Duh!
I sprayed the baking sheet lightly with the cooking spray as well as the inside of the lids.
Do. This. Step!

This is what they looked like after baking in a 350F oven for less than 10 minutes. I kept my eye on them (and the kids in the pool!) the whole time. Even though the lids were flat on the baking sheet, these little suckers still 'bleed' all over the place if they feel like it, so don't get your heart too set on whatever shape you have used.

I immediately used one of the lollipop sticks to swirl the colors together. In all honesty, these could have used another minute or two in the oven. They were still a little thick as I was trying to swirl them around.

Oh, and they harden VERY quickly!

Next, it's time to remove the lids. You want to do this as soon as possible so that it doesn't harden with the candy. My tool of choice: nearby scissors. Yehhhhs... they were clean! This looked pretty cool too. Keep scrolling down to see the artwork that came from this step ;)

Then I swirled the lollipop sticks into one side of the candy. It was already hardening, but still warm enough to get the stick in.
SO COOL!
Yes, I'm shouting! I get super-excited when something actually works the way I wanted it to! heeeeeeheee

I let them cool in the fridge until after dinner and before basketball. Ha, you see what I did there?... sugar AFTER dinner but BEFORE burning it all off at practice. Anyway, they only managed to eat a quarter of it before it was stored in plastic bags for the next day.
Sneaky mama!