So…..cake pops are hard. Difficult. For maybe the first time in my life, I took precaution and planned a day ahead to practice the cake pops that I had never before made and had committed to make for Mona’s class for her birthday, as well as for the school bake sale this weekend. Smart. Well, thank goodness I practiced because it is in no way as easy as it looks. First, I made a batch which was a complete failure. My pops fell off the sticks, the candy coating was too thick, the balls too big (that’s what she said…) and I still don’t know how to get the melted candy smooth…still. After I was through, Mona took a crack at it and was pretty good. Ours totally looked the same.

Oops…forgot the apron…

…that’s better.

So, for the bake sale because it’s a fall harvest festival on a farm, I thought it would be cute to poke the sticks in a decorative bale of straw. Cute, right? Well, considering my cake pops that were supposed to look like this (there is no way), actually turned out looking like this:

…the bail of hay actually aided in their resemblance to candied horse turds.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like to frost, sprinkle, and put a bow on a horse turd (you’ve heard that saying, right?…”You can’t put a bow tie on a turd”…oh, yes you can), this is probably very close to what it would look like: