Jolly Rancher Lollipops

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

2) Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper

3) Place 3-4 unwrapped Jolly Ranchers onto the parchment paper.  Make sure to leave 4-5 inches between suckers if making more than 1.

4) Place cookie sheet in oven and bake for 8 minutes.

5) After 8 minutes, watch the candy through the oven door.  You will need to watch carefully for this next step.  When candy has melted into one large glob, but still kind of holds its shape, remove from oven. The glob stage can take anywhere from 2-5 minutes or so; you just have to keep watching it.  

6) Remove pan from oven.  Immediately roll lollipop stick into end of melted Jolly Ranchers.

7)  Let lollipops cool for 2-3 minutes.  Carefully lifting edges of parchment paper, lift the parchment paper off of the cookie sheet and move to the counter.  Your lollipops will still be warm and flexible, so be careful not to drop them or knock them off of the sheet of parchment paper.

8) Let lollipops cool completely (10-15 minutes).  Once completely cool, package & tie or eat & enjoy.



Here are the results of our latest batch:

Sometimes they come out with really weird shapes--but they still taste good!

We used more than my recommended 3-4 candies here; you can see what happens when globs meet (sounds like a horror movie waiting to happen--Attack of the Sugar Globs!)

I had good helpers.  What's more fun than giving a 4-year-old lots and lots of sugar right before bed time?