Discussion: who knows what jimmies are? There was much discussion around my kitchen table the other day as we were eating some home-made confections…

Apparently jimmies (sprinkles, for those of you who are unfamiliar) must be a local (or regional) term. Is this actually the case? Please let me know in the comments.

What spurred the discussion was my creation of these little ladybug cake confections.

I received one of those “cake pops” pans for Christmas this year. Totally unexpected. I bake a lot of cookies — mostly Italian style biscotti using my Grandmother’s recipe — but I don’t bake cakes.

It’s not that I don’t like cake. It’s just that a cake, even a small one, usually rots on the counter after a few days in this small household. It’s just a waste.

But cake pops on the other hand…are a neat way to economize…

…unless you decorate them, I’ve found. I could have bought a HUGE bakery-made sheet cake — fully themed – for what I paid for candy melts and icing pens, junior mints and confetti and jimmies.

But it was a lot of fun…if not as delicious as I thought they should have been.

Frankly, a slice of cake would have been fine.

But these do look so cute on the counter.

Now… no derisive comments about my decorating skills, okay? I’m a novice.