When it comes to baking I sometimes think I have a black thumb…I can’t ever seem to time the cookies just right….my cakes fall in the middle and no matter how hard I try I rarely get special treats to turn out looking they should.

Instead of just admitting that I am a bad baker, I let the kids get involved then my excuse for the mess is, “The boy had so much fun making these and he is so proud of them. Aren’t they beautiful?”

Ever since I went to the Metropolitan Cooking Show I have been dying to try my hand at making some of these trendy, cute cake pops. Then a few weeks ago at the boy’s end of year party one of the fabulous moms made these adorable Panda Pops. I mean really? Have you ever seen anything cuter?

While I was hanging out with my sister and all our kids at Mimi’s earlier this week, we decided on a whim to make some brownie cake pops. Because we had tons of brownie mix and more truthfully, I was having a major chocolate craving that only a dense, thick brownie was going to cure.

Here’s what we used:

2 box of snack sized brownie mix

large container of chocolate icing

candy quick melting chocolate

tons of sprinkles

chocolate marshmallows****

My sister baked the brownies, let them cool then crumbled them up. Then she mixed in the chocolate frosting until we got the brownies to a consistency that would somewhat form into a ball. It’s a little fuzzy now because we were doing this around bedtime but I’m pretty sure she put the entire bowl of brownie/frosting mix in the fridge for a while to cool and get a bit more firm.

(I’ve told ya’ll several times this is a Real Mom Recipe blog…I rarely have formal recipes!)

Then we formed the brownie /frosting mix into balls, stuck craft sticks in each one, and line the kids up. They dipped in melted chocolate and then made a huge mess with the sprinkles. In hindsight it would have looked much prettier to use while chocolate with the sprinkles…but when I’m in the middle of a serious chocolate fit it’s all chocolate all the time in my crowded head.

So, no where near as pretty and cute as the Panda Pops that I fell in love with, but we all had a blast making them. It’s worth the not so pretty result when your kids are being creative and enjoying actually creating something instead of playing video games.

***sidenote***these don’t really work well with brownie mix..it’s too heavy and we had some trouble keeping the bigger ones on the sticks. Also…light colored melted chocolate or frosting would have been much prettier covering the round pops.

***I have no idea why I grabbed the chocolate marshmallows at the store..but everyone had fun dipping these as well. Marshmallows taste surprisingly good when drenched in chocolate.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days. I have lots of good excuses.

The first and foremost being that I am so not over the romance of the royal wedding. Believe me, I know how lame it is that I got sucked in. It was embarrassing at first..and then I remembered that I really don’t care what anyone else thinks. I am all about the fairytale.

I’ve been spending way too much time blogging about it and reading the lip reading transcripts to get any real work done today. And then of course the Osama thing…it’s just so much to research today.

Somehow I’ve managed to tear myself away from the wedding and after party minutia to tell you about my experience at the Atlanta Metropolitan Cooking Show this past weekend. I’ve been to trade shows before and it’s always a gamble. Sometimes they are fun and informative and sometimes they just suck. This was really neither. But in this economy it was better than I expected.

I had the girl with me so I didn’t do any of the meet and greets with the celebs….but I did get in some quality time with my daughter, my momma and my Mimi. We ate, we laughed, we won lame prizes from vendor spin-the-wheel games and my momma went back for like 10 Duke mayo samples which is just so funny that I can’t even explain.

I wasn’t sure what to expect this year, but oddly there was alot of jewelry vendors there. My favorite thing I brought home is the Beatles Blackbird necklace I bought from Girltrendz. Didn’t leave the house thinking I’d be coming home with fun jewelry.

The boy’s favorite thing I brought home was a bag of Cake Lollipops from Customcakebites.  Cake Lollipops, cake and candy ruled this trade show. Seriously…cake cake and more cake.  And mayonnaise.

If I wasn’t so obsessed with all things royal right now I would post a Cake Lollipop recipe for you. I actually plan on making some this weekend with the kids at our big Mothers Day family thing so I’ll post a recipe and pictures then. Until then please enjoy looking at these delicious creations that I brought home but did not even get to taste. Cake on a stick does not last long in my house.

So it was fun. The girl was a doll baby and only dropped her paci about 1,000 times and charmed strangers left and right. A sweet baby, spending quality time with the amazing women in your life and and watching your mom sneak extra mayo swag = a great day.