By SUSAN BERG

Managing editor

Kids love sweets. Anything with sugar and frosting they are typically quick to eat. But serving pieces of cake or even cupcakes to youngsters can be messy. If only cake could be a smaller serving and on a stick.

Now it is.

Heidi Thurston of Marion is a busy, stay-at-home mom of four children. About 18 months ago, her mother-in-law told her about cake on a stick — cake pops.

Thurston did some research online.

“I just went crazy,” she said.

Already an experienced cake baker and decorator, Thurston found the process to be simple.

A cake is baked —from a mix or from scratch — and then crumbled and mixed with frosting.

“Cake mixes have predictable results,” Thurston said.

She also prefers canned frosting because “it sticks together better, especially in the hot weather,” she said.

The mixture is rolled into balls, refrigerated, and put on a lollipop stick. The ball can be dipped in a candy coating or chocolate.

These days Thurston is sharing her tasty desserts — cookies-and-cream and strawberry-lemonade cake pops — with the rest of the town at the weekly Farm & Art Market each Wednesday at Marion’s Central Park.

“It’s fun to get to know more people,” she said about the market.

The Thurston family likes cake pops.

“They hope I mess up so they have more to eat,” she said with a laugh.