abbywarmLast night was another one of those sigh-inducing scenarios for me. Monkey M’s 4th birthday is tomorrow and today was his day to bring his birthday treat to school. He LOVES cake pops {thank you, BAKERELLA!} so I decided to make some for his treat. He’ll be having a rock-n-roll studio recording party this Saturday {he loves drums even more than cake pops}, so I got the bright idea to make little tiny guitars and drums out of fondant to stick on the cake pops. {sigh} Why do I make my life so difficult? The pops aren’t that big to begin with, so I can’t use a cookie cutter…so how to make the tiny {approximately 1″} guitars/drums?
FONDANT: M’s favorite color is green & I had bought white fondant. I used food coloring to get the right hue.
GUITARS: I bought a tiny wooden guitar from Micheal’s, put it on top of the rolled out fondant and traced it with an exact-o knife. After the guitars hardened a bit, I dipped a toothpick in sparkly black decorating gel to “draw” the strings and other details of the guitars. {Seriously?! What was I thinking?!} After the gel dried a little bit I brushed on a coat of metallic green {leaf green pearl dust mixed with a drop of lemon juice and a drop of water to make a “paint”}.
DRUMS: There were no tiny wooden drums to trace, so I free-handed them all before cutting them out with the exact-o knife. I then drew on the details with the black sparkly decorating gel. After attaching the fondant to the pop, I used the gel to draw drum sticks.
While the itty-bitty instruments were hardening off the side I got everything else ready. {I had already prepared the cake balls and they were chilling in the freezer} I dipped the pops in the melted chocolate and, while it was still wet I stuck the fondant shapes to the side. Easier said than done, trust me. I was NOT happy with how they turned out, but I reminded myself that I was making these for a class full of 3- and 4-year-olds. Are they really going to care if the strings aren’t straight? Or if the drum sticks are crossed or not? Nope, I think they’re going to look at them and see a ball of chocolate on a lollipop stick and think–YUM! Sugar! Once I got past my penchant for perfection {and, let’s face it, I love the reaction I get for my crafty creativity} I moved on to the cake pop holder I found. Cardboard, made by Wilton, cheap {$5.99 and then an additional 40% off w/ coupon}, reusable, way cuter than the chocolate-dropping-covered disc of styrofoam I usually use for letting my cake pops dry…how could I go wrong? Assembling that thing should NOT have been as difficult as it was! {sigh} Oh well, I eventually got it put together, wrapped some green ribbon around the “plates” and it turned out pretty cute. So…what do you think?
{tiny guitars and tiny drums on yummy little cake pops}
Here’s where more went wrong…the pops started to crack. Guess I should’ve listened to the cake pop master when Bakerella said don’t freeze them, just chill them. They expand as they warm back up–duh!
{cracking up}
{Such a bummer! Probably the best guitar...and the pop cracks.}
{cake pop counter chaos!}
{couldn't send the cake pop holder to school with an empty top tier and I just didn't have any more instrument-making in me...}
{some with sprinkles, some with pearl dust}
{my birthday boy with his special birthday treat. Can you tell he's excited??}
Despite my {un}perfect results, when M came downstairs this morning and saw them all, the look on his face was pure perfection in my book!
Picture {un}Perfect Life 