A friend and I had a “study date,” which means we watched Japanese animated movies and played with candy and pretended we were learning something.

Popin’ Cookin’ is childen’s DIY candy where the snacks you make usually resemble (and sometimes taste) like everyday foods — hamburgers, ramen, sushi. We tried the strawberry and vanilla flavor cake, ice cream and tart kit.

It came with everything we needed – mini sugar cones and tart shell, mixing tray and spoon, pastry bag for frosting, sprinkles, and the frosting mix. Just add water, and poof! Ice cream! sort of…

The mix smelled of pure sugar and strawberry Nesquik. Surprisingly (not really), I ate it anyway and it wasn’t nearly as sweet as I expected. It was maybe even a little bit good. Maybe. Just a little bit. Don’t judge.

I count this as studying because the instructions are all in Japanese. Maybe I read them, or maybe I just looked at the pictures … I’ll never tell.

We also made a panda cake, because, why not?!

First you draw the panda eyes and such with chocolate, following the pattern printed on wax paper. Then you top him off with vanilla “cake” mix which was more like pudding. I don’t have a microwave, so we put them in the toaster oven for a few minutes.

As you can see, one of us likes to color outside the lines.