Lollipop Sugar Cookies...

I may have mentioned before that I'm a MOPs small group leader. Well, this year, we were encouraged to do a little something for the gals in our group. I saw this recipe online, and I got so excited! It fired up all my baking juices. Go here to the Idea Room for the full recipe.

If you can make playdough snakes, you can do this. And besides looking very pretty, it's the best sugar cookie dough recipe I've ever tasted. I think it probably has to do with the bit of cream cheese in there.

I tinted my dough with red gel food coloring. It took a little bit of doin' to get it three acceptable and different shades of pink. That probably was the most complicated part of making this recipe. If you're making the primary colored lollipop, you won't have this problem.

Then I made three small, equal sized balls, probably about 3/4 of an inch apiece. I don't think it matters how big you make them, as long as you make all the cookies using the small sizes so they bake evenly.

Then I smashed the balls together to make one big ball. After that, I rolled this ball into a long, thin snake on the clean kitchen counter. It was about a 10-12 inch snake, probably. Then you roll the snake up, stick a sucker stick in there (you can get those and big lollipop sticks at Michaels), and bake!

I made a dent in the top to sort of make a heart, but I didn't think it looked that great in the final analysis.... so the rest of them I just made as pink lollipops. If you're feeling inspired, you still have a couple of days to go and do this yourself. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!