Mario Bros Piranha Plant Tube Pops

This post has been sponsored by Airheads. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Baby Boy turned FOUR last month! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! I mean REALLY it’s insane to me that 4 years has passed so quickly.  He’s clearly no longer a baby, but his name is stuck… for now.  ANYWAY I wasn’t planning on a birthday party, since he’s not in school and doesn’t have “friends”.  BUT he is so cute and he PLANNED one himself!  He has been planning his Mario birthday for months.

So I’m currently working on a fully themed Mario party.  Honestly mom moment here – I told Baby Boy he couldn’t have a party until he potty trains (#meanmom) so we haven’t done a FULL party yet, but in honor of his birthday we needed to do SOMETHING to celebrate so I decided to create these Mario Piranha pops (Plus I’m hoping these will inspire him to use the potty so he can have that full party).  These can be made out of cake pops, cupcakes, or Sandwich Cookie Balls (which is what I used, I felt they would be the most heavy, stable and hold the shape the best).

I started by making a batch and rolling them into two logs then freezing them.  Then I cut the logs into 4 parts.  So these aren’t like little truffle balls, these suckers are HUGE, You could make mini versions of these, but we were going for a big impressive treat for our family party.

Like any pop while they are cold I dip the stick in to the melted chocolate and then into the pop. Once the sticks are set, I dip the entire pop into the chocolate. Shake it off and let it set. I used chocolate so it would look DARK inside the green tubes, but a dark green would work great as well.

I used 2 watermelon Airheads bars for each tube.  Cut a piece of freezer paper to fit around the tubes and place an unwrapped green Airheads bar on the shiny side of the freezer paper, microwave it for 15 seconds on power 20%, this will warm it up JUST enough to roll it out without COOKING it.  Place it on a larger sheet of freezer paper (shiny side up) and roll it out until it spreads past your template piece of freezer paper, cut off the top and bottom with a pizza wheel and wrap it around the pop. Then use scissors to cut the overlapping candy in the back. The scissors will “seal” the candy together and it will hold great.

Take a second piece of the same watermelon Airheads bar and microwave it as well, trying to keep it thick just roll it out LENGTHwise and wrap it around the top, sticking it above the pop so it creates a 3D look.  Cut and seal it as well.  Now your tubes are done! I used the excess green (that I cut off after rolling it out) to create leaves. I just wrapped them around the Popsicle stick and let them chill. This will will harden the leaves quickly and keep the cookie ball pop chilled as well.

Now for the Piranha!  I took one cherry Airheads bar for each one, I folded them in half, then microwaved them for 15 seconds on 20% power like before.  Then rolled them out until they were JUST wide enough for a 2 inch cutter, that way they are thicker and stronger. Set them aside and let them cool off and harden again.

In the meantime take 2 White Mystery Airheads and cut the thicker sides into strips, then cut the strips into 1 1/4 inch pieces. Angle these pieces and attach them for the lips. Microwave and roll out what’s left and using the back of a frosting tip to cut out small white circles.  While these are warm they attach easily, just with the warmth of your fingers even!

Now take one more cherry Airheads and microwave it for 40 seconds on 40% power (I turned it over half way through) and dip the top of the sticks into the melted cherry Airheads.  Use this to attach the stiff piranha tops to the tops of the sticks!

and DONE! They turned out GREAT, the kiddos loved them.  And while Baby Boy is distracted in this pic he was super excited about them. He just didn’t want to stop for a picture (aka hand modeling, usually something they love, but he really just wanted to eat it… biggest cookie pop EVER)

For more fun ideas on how to craft with Airheads visit and follow them on Pinterest. To learn more about Airheads candy visit their website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!