In search of...the elusive black sprinkle

I have a friend (Car's mom, actually) who makes cakepops.  Are you familiar with the cakepop revolution?  A fun treat popularized by Bakerella, cakepops are cake crumbs mixed with frosting, rolled into balls, placed on a stick, and dipped in chocolate or candy melts.  Oh yes, my friends, it is...cake on a stick!  (all you Minnesota State Fair fans, you'll understand).

Ever since J first mentioned cakepops to me I've wanted to make them, but since I don't really care for cake, or frosting, or candy melts, I needed to find a suitable cakepop occasion, and a really cute cakepop design.  So I set off on a mission to find the perfect cakepop for my first attempt.

J is too gracious to complain, but I figure she has to be getting a little tired of me sending all these cakepop links to her--it's not like she's an expert, but she is the person in my life who is most knowledgeable on this subject.  Anyway, it was last week when I realized I had crossed over the line into the territory known as obsessed.

I came across these super-cute spooky spider cakepops and immediately knew that I had found the pop I needed to make.

Source: 365cakepops.com via Scarlet on Pinterest

I mean...just look at them--they're adorable.

I quickly recruited my mustache cookie friends and we started planning our cakepop party.  Each of us is responsible for obtaining supplies to make one type of cakepop.  I'm doing the spiders, of course, so I need black candy melts, candy eyes, black string licorice, and black sprinkles.

This morning I had an appointment sorta kinda near that one craft store, so I sorta kinda stopped in before my appointment to pick up my supplies.  I figured they'd all be pretty easy to find at this time of year, so I wasn't worried.

First I saw the black candy melts: check.  Next, the candy eyes, and although the package doesn't say how many it contains, I'm confident that I have enough: check.  The craft store even had black string licorice, which was actually a bit of a surprise to me: check.  All I needed now was the black sprinkles.

But they didn't have any!  They had black sugar, they had mixtures of decors with black in the mix, they had black and white sprinkles mixed together, black sugar pearls, black sparkles, but no just plain black sprinkles.  A quick check of a few other grocery type stores yielded more black sugar, a mixture of purple, green, and black round decors, a mix of black and orange sprinkles, a mixture of purple, black, and orange sprinkles, and a few other types of fun mixtures, but none that were black, and only black sprinkles.

Who knew it would be so difficult?  In fact, I was kind of thinking the sprinkles would be the easiest ingredient to find.

Now, I'm not really worried about this turn of events.  I mean, I would like to make the spider cakepops with black sprinkles, as directed, but I'm sure they will taste just as good and look just as cute with one of the mixtures.

But keep your eyes open, and if you happen to come across the elusive breed of confection known as the exclusively black sprinkle, let me know...