DIY Ice Pops – a cool trend
Seeing so many awesome photos of DIY Ice Pops really got me thinking…I’m going to age myself a bit but here goes. One of the memories that I remember vividly was the summer that I spent babysitting my two god-brothers. One, it was a good gig – my godmother paid above the going rate and she used to drop the boys at my house each morning because we lived in town. Every day we’d walk 5 mins to the local Mac’s Milk (think 7-eleven) to get a slushy or some other cool treat. I can still remember the day when we realized that the popsicle sticks had point values imprinted on them and if you saved enough you could trade them in for a Nintendo game. (yes, this is where you start trying to calculate how old I am).
From that point on, we ate popsicles not stop. We even started foregoing Mac’s Milk and instead started buying popsicles by the case from the grocery store. We’d cheer when we got a 100 point stick and jeer when we got yet another 10 point stick. I can’t remember the exact number we were aiming for but I can tell you it had to have been in the neighborhood of 30,000-50,000 points. We eventually go there but fell victim to the “while supplies last” clause.
My daughter loves “pops” too. Since her diet can be a little limiting at times, I thought the new DIY ice pop trend would be a good one to try since I could hide all kinds of good things in those pops.
So I finally washed up the molds and set about to figure out what kind of pops I could make given what I had on hand. I decided to make a two-layer pop as a bit of a test. The first layer, was made primarily with Vanilla and blueberries and the second layer was a mixed berry puree.
DIY Berry Ice Pops
A healthy, good for you Ice Pop.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups vanilla yogurt
- 1.5 cups frozen blueberries
- 1 cup frozen mixed berries
- Lime
- 1/4 cup of water
- Sugar or Sweetener, optional
Instructions
- Add 1.5 cups vanilla yogurt to blender container.
- Add frozen berries and blend until smooth consistency.
- Fill Ice Pop molds approximately 1/2 full and place in freezer to set.
- Clean blender.
- Add 1/4 cup of water to the blender and the juice of one lime.
- Add 1 cup of mixed frozen berries and puree. Add additional water if necessary.
- Add sugar, stevia, honey if desired.
- Refrigerate puree.
- Once the 1st layer is set, fill the molds with the mixed berry puree and return to the freezer until frozen fully.
Notes
Run molds under warm water for ~10 seconds to release the mold.
After shooing my daughter away from the freezer I left the first layer to set while I made the second layer and then chilled it in the fridge. After approx an hour I added the second layer and then left these to freeze overnight. I really wasn’t too sure how this “experiment” might turn out. Low and behold, it turns out my daughter couldn’t wait to try one and had already completed a taste test on her own before I got home from work. Luckily I still had a couple so I could take a picture of the final product.
Needless to say, I’ll be making more and I’ll be trying any and all flavor combinations that I can think of. Check out these thorough Ice Pop Recipe roundups for more inspiration:
17 Refreshing Iced Tea Popsicles You Should Make this Summer from Buzzfeed.
Ice Pop Recipes from marthastewart.com – 38 Recipes are bound to give you inspiration.
24 Guilt-Free Ice Pops That Will Make You Go Ahhhh from Buzzfeed.
10 Homemade Popsicle Recipes from Real Simple.
50 Popsicle Recipes to Keep Your Kiddos Cool All Summer Long from Pop Sugar.