Christmas Treats

I wanted to share a couple of Christmas treats I made this year (thank you Pinterest!).  I'll start with the easy one...  The Christmas Tree Fruit Platter. I put this together for the kids' Joy School party today.  Fun & simple.  The only cutting you have to do is the apples & my friend Rachel cut the star out of cheese.  

Next we have Rudolf Cake Pops.  WHEW were they a chore!  But they turned out SO well that I can't complain.  I typed up the instructions for a couple of people so I thought I'd post them here just in case anyone wanted to do them!  They really were a hit!

Here's what you'll need:

• Red Velvet cake mix (or any other kind you want to use)
• 16 oz. can of cream cheese frosting 
• 1 package of chocolate almond bark (or use chocolate candy melts, found at a craft store)
• wax paper
• lollipop sticks
• lollipop bags
• brown or tan pipe cleaners/fuzzy sticks
• red m&m's
• white confetti sprinkles or pearl sprinkles (for the eyes)
• black edible marker 

Everything from the lollipop sticks down I found at either Hobby Lobby or Michael's craft stores.

For the prep work:

• Bake the cake according to directions for a 9x13 pan, allow to cool completely
• separate out all of the red m&m's you're going to use
• separate out the white confetti sprinkles (or if you use pearl, they'll already all be white

Directions

• When the cake is cooled, scoop it into a large bowl and mix it with all of the frosting.  Using your hands works best but its very MESSY!
• Put in the fridge and chill for an hour (at least!)
• Scoop 1/3 - 1/2 into a separate bowl & return the rest to the fridge.  Form the cake mixture into balls and put them on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper.  Keep getting the cake mix from the fridge until you've made them all into cake balls.  Stick the lollipop sticks into the balls & put the cookie tray in the freezer overnight.  You'll want to cover them so I let them freeze on a cookie sheet for a few hours & once they were hard, tipped them over & put a lid on it.  The harder frozen they are, the easier the next steps will be.
• When they're nice & frozen, melt the chocolate bark & 1 TBSP Crisco in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until its thin & melted completely.  
• As quickly as you can, dip the pops in the chocolate, tap off excess chocolate & while still wet, put sprinkles on for eyes & m&m on for the nose.  Hold the pop on its side for a little bit while the eyes & nose set so they don't slide off, then put the pop on another cookie sheet covered in wax paper.
• Repeat this as quickly as you can & only reheat the chocolate if you have to.
• When you're all done, use the edible marker to draw the pupil on the eyes.
• Put in the sucker bags & use the pipe cleaner antlers to close them.  

Antlers (see picture):

1. Make a loop
2. twist loop leaving two smaller loops at the ends
3. push each loop into a v-shape & twist the branches
4. wrap around lollipop stick

Viola!