Whether the weather is sheep-gentle or lion-savage, this darling snack – from Meaghan Mountford’s book SUGARLICIOUS: 50 Cute and Clever Treats for Every Occasion (Harlequin, March 2012) – sets the stage for spring! Surprise your family with these sweet treats, adapted from the book (with additional tips from eHow.com).
Ingredients and supplies
- Cake mix
- 1 1/3 cups butter cream frosting
- Black edible writer
- Jordan almonds
- Shredded coconut
- Pink, blue, yellow or purple food coloring (optional)
- White candy melts (or colors that coordinate with food coloring)
- Mini pretzel rods
- Wax paper
Directions
- Bake a 9″ x 13″ sheet cake with your favorite recipe or a box mix. Let the cake cool completely and crumble into a large bowl. Stir in 1 1/3 cups butter cream frosting (three-quarters of a store-bought container) and mix well, pressing cake and frosting together with back of a spoon or, preferably, mixing with your hands until you have a texture that is wet, smooth and able to be formed.
- Between your palms, roll mixture into balls 1 1/2″ in diameter and place on a baking tray lined with wax paper. Freeze for 15 minutes – no longer! Move the tray to the refrigerator to keep them firm but not frozen. Work with a few cake balls at a time while keeping the remainder in the fridge.
- Make two black dots for eyes with the edible writers on each Jordan almond and set aside.
- If you choose, tint the coconut pink, blue, yellow or purple. Put some of the coconut into a re-sealable plastic zip baggie. Add two or three drops of food coloring (let it hit the plastic – i.e., not directly on the coconut). Close the bag and shake/massage until the color is distributed evenly, adding more if needed.
- Pour coconut on a plate and set aside. Melt the candy melts per instructions (either by stovetop or microwave); place in a bowl. For each lamb, break two pretzel rods in half so each pretzel is about 1 3/4″ long. Dip the broken ends of the four pretzel pieces in the melted candy melts; then insert them into the base of a chilled cake ball. (For best results, return the cake ball to the freezer for five minutes to help set.)
- Holding two of the pretzel legs, dip each cake ball in the melts and immediately roll in coconut. Stand the cake ball on the pretzel legs on a piece of wax paper.
- Use a dab of melted candy melts to adhere the Jordan almond head to the lamb. Let dry.
This post was originally published in 2012 and has been updated in 2016.
