That is one UG-LY chick...

I bet you think I'm referring to an ugly girl. Messed! But I'm literally referring to a chick. Or rather, cake pop chicks:

Identities have been concealed for emotional security purposes

Laugh. How cute is that? Personally, I never understood how a simple black bar over the eyes concealed one's identity. For example:

Even with the black bar over my eyes, you can still tell it's me right? That's what I'm saying. Stupid.

Anyways. Enough silliness.  Last week, Angi (of Meli & Angi and Angi & Co.) asked me if I could make duck cake pops for an event she was working on. I immediately said, sure! why not? Ducks are pretty straight forward right?

Except each time I tried to make a duck, it came out a chick.

First, as a standard, here's a pic of my traditional "chick" cake pops:

To make that more duck-like, I changed the nose to a larger triangular candy piece to be the "bill":

You'll notice I forgot to add his arms.  I felt so bad that I made him a friend to keep him company:

A little extra candy dripped onto the fella on the right. Smack on his shiny bald head. Better than the dirt (cake flake) that got wedged between the toes of the fella on the left I suppose. But I still felt like they looked too chick-y, not enough duck-y, so I decided to double the beaks:

Better, right? He looks like a happy fella. Blissfully ignorant of the fact that I accidentally swiped his side with my finger and dug out a chunk of his left abdomen....It was just one of those nights that did not go smoothly....thank GOODNESS these were not for a real event but just practice trials.

Then, a lightbulb went off, what if I flip the triangle beaks so the wide part is outside, kinda like a real duck bill?

And the lightbulb went out and it went dark. These do not look like ducks. They look like platypus (platypuses? platypi? what's the plural? argh. the frustration from the night is carrying over into this blog!). And see what a difference eye placement makes when  you compare platypus on the left versus platypus on the right. Is it just me or does the one on the right remind you of Nicholas Cage?  Also, can't tell if you notice, but there's a crack running down the front of platypus left's face. Scarface.

Maybe it's the feet? Keeping them from fully realizing their duckiness.  So I changed those out to giant circle sprinkles. Which turned out cute! Like he was weaing orthpedic shoes. But after I made him, he fell back into the pot of candy melts and looked like the Joker from Batman. The Heath Ledger version. So at this point I got so frustrated, I just smashed him against the baking sheet...and then ate him to hide the evidence. Sorry, no picture.

I'm not really that violent. But sometimes you just gotta let it out on an innocent cake pop so you can regain your sane marbles.  Luckily I was just playing around this night with extras so it wasn't really a big deal.

All the ugly chickees and wannabe duckies together:

They look so mischievious right?

I'm hoping Angi got a picture of the final product at the actual party. Because I forgot...
But you'll be happy to know that the actual production of the real duck pops went very smoothly. In fact, it was a 100% yield and 100% success rate! :)

Hopefully this post is encouraging to newbie cake pop makers who encounter a frustrating night. You'd think after all the cake pops I've made by now the process would be easy peasy.  No matter, even ugly cake pops are delicious. No one seems to turn away an ugly chick. At least if it's a cake pop.

=O


ADDENDUM (12/16)
Here's a picture of the final product!