Happy 1st Birthday to Tag Sale Tastes!  One year ago today I launched the blog with Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies made with red and blue cherries for the 4th of July.  That recipe has since been pinned and repinned many times on Pinterest (including once by a mean pinner who didn’t care for my sculptural tree decorated with red and blue ornaments and declared it the “Christmas in July take on the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree,” and was so proud of her witty self that she included 9 hashtags with it).

To kick off the blog’s second year, here’s another patriotic treat that will surely make your kids smile, and only requires 3 ingredients.  The first is these red, white, and blue Twizzlers I found at Walgreen’s:

I think it’s a bit of stretch to say that they are “raspberry, wild berry, and lemonade” flavored, but more discriminating palates (or is it less discriminating palates?) might disagree.  If you can’t find these, you can, of course, use plain old Twizzlers.

The second ingredient is Little Debbie Swiss Rolls (which I will forever call Ho Hos):

The last ingredient is Pop Rocks:

Just before you plan to serve them, assemble the “firecrackers” by cutting off a 2-inch piece of Twizzler, and pulling apart the individual strands about halfway down, to create a “fuse” for your firecracker.  Using the end of wooden spoon or a skewer, poke a hole in the end of the Swiss Roll and sprinkle in some Pop Rocks, and then stick the Twizzler fuse in the end of the Swiss Roll.  Seriously — if you can stick a Twizzler in a Ho Ho (yeah, I know), then you can make a “firecracker.”  As Ina would say, “How easy is that?”  (Except hell would probably have to freeze over before she ever made Jeffrey a Twizzler/Ho Ho firecracker.)

4th of July Firecrackers

I found another firecracker interpretation using Twizzlers — these “perfectly imperfect” Firecracker Pops from Sweet Simple Stuff:

Something about Twizzlers brings out the kid in everyone!