The College Football Playoff National Championship is Monday night right here in Atlanta and the Georgia Bulldogs are playing!!! YAY! Go Dawgs! It’s been like 37 years since Georgia has claimed a National Championship title, so needless to say, folks around here are pretty freaking excited about the game. Atlanta businesses are even shutting down early to make way for all the traffic and craziness to come. Now, I’m not really a big football follower, but I have a ton of friends that went to the University of Georgia and even more that are super fans, so I was excited to make these dawg treats to celebrate making it to the Championship game.
They start with this bulldog candy mold. I think I’ve had this thing for at least eight years and never used it until today. But oh what a good reason.
The mold is super easy to use, especially if you are just filling it with melted candy coating. You can use a squeeze bottle to fill the cavities and a toothpick to coerce the coating into tighter areas like the ears. Once filled, tap or wiggle the mold gently on the counter and then place a lollipop stick in position. Place the mold in the freezer to set and when dry, gently lift them out by the lollipop sticks.
You can also turn these into cake pops with a little more effort. They say bulldog fans bleed red and black, but in this case red velvet will have to do. Fill the cavities completely with melted coating and then turn the mold upside down and let all the excess coating fall out onto some wax paper. Shift and tilt the remaining coating to generously coat the inside of the mold cavity and let dry. Then fill the area that’s hollow with cake pop mixture. (I didn’t need much so I just used a couple of bakery red velvet cupcakes with a little bit of their frosting to mix together and press into the heads.) Once the cavities are almost full, press in a lollipop stick and then fill the remaining area with more melted white coating, making sure to cover the lollipop stick. Place in the freezer to set and that’s it.
When dry, they’ll easily pop out and look like this. Okay, let’s be real – these don’t look much like Georgia Bulldogs yet but, keep reading to see how they come together.
Sidenote: Really talented candy makers and candy mold users would probably treat these differently, but I’m not that good. Typically, you would paint the inside of the candy mold with other colors of coating before filling with the base color. For instance, paint or dot on the eyes and nose, let them dry and then fill the rest of the cavity with white. I knew I couldn’t get in those tight spaces or even see them that well, so I took a different route.
I painted on top of them with a very thin brush and black edible food paint to try to capture the very graphic look of the Dawgs mascot logo. Much much better than all white! logo
The paint dries quickly and if you mess up, now worries. You can easily remove or straighten lines by gently scraping off the black with a toothpick. To finish the team mascot look, use a toothpick to apply a “collar” of red candy coating around the bottom half of the head. Then for spikes, place tiny heart sprinkles upside down into the red coating. If you want them to look metallic, paint the tops with a light coating of silver luster dust.
Bulldog Nation – what do you think?!
You’re right. They need some dawg tags!
A 1/5 inch paper punch, small hole punch and these downloadable tags. And Done!
And one more time……… Go Dawgs!!!
P.S. Here’s some footballs for the win.
Did you just use regular paper for the cutouts or a thicker paper? Look great just got my mold going to attempt to make these
I love these so much!! so cute
Still and always have loved the Dawgs. Love you Dawgs!!!!! ???
Your patience, creativity and artistry are unlimited!
Just nope. Roll Tide!! :-)
Love the pops! GOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS!!!!!!
Go Dawgs! Maybe Gators next year!!
I love these so much! Are you sure you weren’t an artist in a past life? Your steady hand, attention to detail and incredible imagination are out of this world!
I did draw a lot as a child and went to school for art, but if you saw how shaky my hands were you’d be surprised I could draw a sort of straight line now. : )
Ahaha they look so cute and grumpy :D
Thanks Mindy!
Those dogs look mean and mad and ready to clean the Crimson Tide. Great job!
thanks!
I love all your cake pops. Your so creative and it makes me want to make everything. I’m still looking for a tear drop hole puncher. I hope I can find one.
you made me smile that you remembered the kind I use. AND I just tried to find one online, too. Not so much luck. You can always use a circle punch. I just like how snug the teardrop shape keeps the paper on the lollipop stick.
Soooooooo cute!!! ???