Nothing says "Baby Shower" like the variety of sweet treats that often come along with the event. Sweets are often as consistent of a shower participant as are expectant mothers. For the party we were throwing last week, I wanted to make a series of dessert snacks that would fit into the utensil-less, turquoise, and gender neutral theme we were embracing for the shower. One of the desserts the co-hostess and I had our eyes on but had never tried seemed to absolutely fit our requirements, and it was a true treat.

Yep, I'm talking about the Rice Krispies treat lollipops we briefly mentioned in the wrap up post on the shower. Today I'll walk you through the steps involved in creating these little delicious balls of goodness just in case you'd like to try it for you next event. (Pssst, any given night of the week easily counts as an event if you're looking for a good excuse.)

The idea behind this dessert is simple -- put a twist on something classic and make it stand out with a unique presentation.

This recipe starts out just like any normal Rice Krispy treat recipe. You'll need Rice Krispies, marshmallows, and butter.

If you've never made Rice Krispies Treats, what are you waiting for? It's super easy and tastes great. 

All you need to do is melt three tablespoons of butter in a large pot over low heat. Once melted, add a ten ounce bag of marshmallows and six cups of Rice Krispies. Stir until well coated. 

Once all of your Rice Krispies treat mix is ready to go you're ready to start forming the balls. (Act fast, as the more the mixture cools, the harder it is to work with.) This is where the classic recipe begins to deviate from the norm.

Since you typically spread the mix through a baking dish you aren't normally worried about the extreme stickiness of the concoction, but we wanted to form these treats into medium sized balls. The best method we formulated was to hand form the treats, but melted marshmallow is really, truly, sticky. Channeling our inner Paula Dean, we called butter to the rescue. To allow the mixture to glide easily over the surface of our palms, rather than sticking to our skin, we buttered up our hands. (Hence the shininess in the photo.)

We figured that whatever we'd put on our hands would ultimately end up in the food, so why not loosen the bonds of melted mallow with a little more of an ingredient that is both already in the recipe, and makes everything better? Problem solved!

We formed each ball and placed it on a parchment paper lined baking sheet to allow them to each cool and set up a bit.

Once the balls had reached an appropriate level of solidification, we were free to give them each a final squeeze to ensure the desired round shape (some had flat sided), then we proceeded with insertion of the candy sticks.

We wanted to make sure guests could easily eat these one handed and without the need for a plate or additional utensils. What better way to accomplish this than to put the food on a stick, lollipop style?

Using a few thick sticks, like the ones big chocolate suckers are made on, we began piercing the outer portion of the ball treats.

This is the first "do as I say, not as I do" of this project if you're attempting to reproduce this recipe. We ultimately pushed the sticks too far through on the balls, and this proved nearly catastrophic to the larger and more weighty balls as the stick ended up slipping all of the way through in the hours following their completion. Instead, try to push the sticks only as far into the treats as necessary to provide enough support, probably about, at most, 1/2 way through each.

Once the sticks were in place we moved the entire thing to the side and began working on the presentation aspect of the recipe.

Our hope was to allow guests to select the Rice Krispies treat lollipop of their choosing as you would a flower from a bouquet, so we needed a way to place the sticks into something that would allow them to stand. Hey, if we needed to present them like flowers, why not use something that is specifically made for this sort of thing? Floral foam!

We selected a several small pots and a few bowls that would act as the actual container vessel for the pops, then began cutting the floral foam into pieces to fit neatly into and fill the containers. It wasn't the quickest or cleanest thing in the world, so it was best to do it outside where the mess was more easily cleaned up.

After filling the pots with the foam, we concealed the foam with craft store moss, tacked down with a bit of hot glue. We were all ready for the lollipops.

Getting the foam in place in the bowl proved to be far more difficult than the smaller pots. I had to do a whole lot of cutting to get it all right, and then it kept wanting to lift right out of the container.

After a lot of finagling I finally finished up the larger tureen container.

Before we placed the balls on sticks, I wanted to make one final addition to the recipe -- add some white chocolate and turquoise sanding sugar.

It was my hope in same way to cover the exterior of the treat balls with melted white chocolate, sort of like a cake pop. I melted some white chocolate in the microwave and began dipping the pop balls into the chocolate. I had to be very careful due to the weight the chocolate added to the treat and the tendency for the Rice Krispies balls to come off the sticks in the chocolate, so we simply topped the balls with chocolate, rather than completely submerging them.

For the smaller sized treats, I opted to just drizzle the chocolate over the top, rather than dunking it. I think I actually liked the look of the drizzled pops better than the dunked one.

We finished off the recipe by dusting the tops of each pop with aqua sanding sugar to go along with the theme of the party.

As we finished each pop's chocolate application, we began inserting the end of the sticks into the foam wherever we wanted them to sit.

We had to be a little careful not to press too hard, and since the foam wasn't affixed to the bowl, even weight was the goal. If we were doing it over again I might somehow try to glue or otherwise pin the foam to the bottom of the larger containers.

We arranged the sticks in an outer and inner circle in each container, along with a center pop to finish them off. The end result, a beautifully presented and unique delivery of a delicious party favorite. You can't beat that. Alex took the following photo of me while he was working outside. As you can see, I was somewhat happy with the results of our efforts.

When we finally set them out for guests they were a pretty huge hit. I saw several guests enjoying them while both chatting with friends and holding a drink in their free hand. 

Mission accomplished!

Do you have any interesting presentation methods of simple favorite treats? I think this may rival our "spooky s'mores in a bag" favors from last year's Halloween party for my favorite presentation of a classic dessert. If you attempt to do the same, let me know how it turns out for you, and if you have any tips or tricks to make it go a little smoother.