Homemade Jolly Rancher Lollipops!

So I pretty much decided I'd make these today.

I've been talking and talking about it ever since I first saw the idea. But between work, the girls, the dogs, my husband's college courses, and every other little thing in between...I've not had time.

But today, despite feeling crappy, I made these wonderful lollipops.

Just looking at them makes me smile. The colors are so great together and when the light shines through them it's just like heaven. Or...close enough.

So you just pick which flavors you want per lollipop. I went the extra bit and organized each flavor into a group and counted them. That way, I knew how many I had for each layer of a lollipop. OCD? A bit...but that's okay! Right?

Take any size baking sheet and cover it will aluminum foil and then add a layer of parchment paper on top of that. I guess this is to make sure the ranchers don't melt too fast and then the parchment paper is for easy removal. I didn't want to not do it that way and totally screw it up. You know?

Here, have another picture of my jolly ranchers all lined up. :]

 The most sets that I put on the sheet at once was seven. Make a zigzag pattern so that when it is time to insert the lollipop stick, the open side of the stick will not touch a different lollipop.

Once you have the lollipops outlined like so, in the oven they go! 

 I have an electric oven that I set at 270 degrees fahrenheit. Once the oven was preheated, I still waited a few minutes to get the oven to optimum prime. (Like my Transformers pun?)

I turned my timer on for five minutes at first. Once I checked, the outline of the ranchers were just beginning to melt. So I just stood there and watched it, counting the minutes. I had a small audience. :]

After an estimated eight to nine total minutes, I figured then was a good of time as any to remove the cookie sheet and insert the lollipop sticks right away. Because I'm a sucker for organization and preparedness, I already had my sticks counted out and on the counter, ready to go.

And let me tell you, to no exaggeration, that before I had even gotten to my third set of ranchers, they were already slightly sticky and harder to coat the stick with. But. I was all sorts of excited and managed to take my time to insert the sticks in each lollipop. And rather straight, I might add!!

(Don't worry, the all pink one was meant to be

like that. It's not as cute, though.)

On another note, the post I made to my personal facebook about these was covered with the idea of the lollipops with the green on the top and bottom looking like TMNT. How cute would that be for a birthday themed party or something?!

Anyways. I just ended up wrapping these lollipops in cling wrap and used a twist tie for closure reinforcement. For a party or gathering, I would still use cling wrap but probably just measure it out more so the ends look nice and use a type or ribbon or yarn. Or pretty colored twist ties if I could find them.

Like I said, they're just really cute. :]

-Erin