Cake Pops with My (Almost) Four Year Old

 In two days my youngest Princess will be turning four.  Four whole years since the worst Valentine's Day of my whole life on which I received the best Valentine of my whole life.  Ironic that my Valentine birth was the only one where I didn't get to have an epidural....
But that is neither here nor there.  What IS here--is that for Nora's birthday we got her a visit to the local cake and candy shop for a Cake Pop Class.  She was so very excited.  So was I!  Henry was pretty happy to get some new scenery as well. 

 It was a cold morning and I thought my camera was just foggy from the cold car ride.  After a few pictures I realized that someone had licked the lens.  The first few pictures were ruined, but after that things were looking cleaner. 
The first step (after gloving up) in cake pop making is to take pre-baked cake and crumble it all up.  Then stir in some non-dairy coffee creamer (a teensy bit at a time) and keep mixing with your hands until it reaches moldable consistency.   Nora was really good at this part!

 Next, you roll bits of dough into balls--or cut them into small shapes--like the flowers Nora is cutting out here.

 After you have your shapes, you add a stick and then dip the pops in melted chocolate.  We had dark chocolate and a few colors--red, yellow, white and pink.  The yellow was lemon flavored and the others were simply vanilla.  After dipping, the pops are placed in the fridge for a few moments to harden.  They can be sprinkled with decor before hardening OR they can harden and then be decorated with more frosting.  Henry blocked our route to the fridge for a while.  Then he got fussy and moved to the front pack.  Technically I was not supposed to be working with the pops since I didn't pay for the class for myself.  But I did have to help Nora to speed things along.  At that point I had to stop taking pictures.

 But after she finished, Nora took over camera duties.  That is Snow White (who works at the cake and candy shop) in the back ground.  She spent a lot of time and energy helping us.

 Here's my girl with a sample of her goods--aren't those bumble  bees cute?  The wings are made out of gelatin paper so they are edible!   These cake pops tasted very yummy.  And we came home with about 50 of them.  I think she made them smaller than most people would normally do.  That meant that poor Snow White had to wrap a lot of pops.  She wrapped each one and tied them with pretty colored ribbons. It was a very good deal!  And I had a ton of fun watching my girl at her class.

 We used the cake pops for favors when we had a very small birthday party for Nora last weekend.  We played a few traditional games such as "Pass the Parcel"...

 And tossing cotton balls into jars...

 And "Pin the Petal on the Flower"

 Of course there were presents and cake.  Nora chose a malted milk chocolate cake and it tasted pretty delish. 

Now that we've got her all celebrated early, we can fly off to California to spend some time with Uncle Nathan and Aunt Megan's family.  Wahoo!  Nora will officially turn four while we are there.  TTFN!