Juicy, sweet, cool, and fun—popsicles are a summertime tradition. If you love to eat popsicles, you may enjoy making some of your own concoction. Doesn't everybody love the refreshing sweetness of a popsicle, whatever the size, shape or flavor?
Flavors First
What are your favorite flavors? Now, remember the color and flavor doesn’t always match. For example, blue popsicles may be blueberry flavor or raspberry or even coconut flavor. Red popsicles might prove to be strawberry, cherry, cranberry, fruit punch or pomegranate! Yellow might prove to be banana or lemon. What flavors might an orange color make? Peach, tangerine, orange, guava, papaya, or orange-pineapple? So choose a flavor instead of a color.
Equipment
For making your popsicles, you will need molds. Plastic molds with sticks and lids are the easiest and make the shapes well, but you can use any narrow plastic container and popsicle sticks. The craft departments of many stores carry boxes or popsicle sticks. Ice cube trays and toothpicks will work for little pops, but not so well.
Five oz. plastic drinking cups and ice cream paddle stick spoons can be used. Try using empty yogurt cups. Whatever you use a lid with a slit for the stick cut into it cane hold the stick centered.
A blender is handy for making popsicles but it isn’t necessary. You will need a pitcher or a bowl with a spout to mix in.
Preparation
Prepare a nice flat place in the freezer where the popsicle molds can sit to freeze. A sheet of waxed paper or tin foil will help keep the spot clean of spills.
Decide on your recipe and read over it so that it is clear to your mind how to proceed. Will you make real fruit juice or fruit flavored pops, prepared juice types, cream or juice only types. After you have chosen a recipe, set out all the ingredients.
Assemble the molds and the ingredients. Paper towels come in handy with this messy production. Lay some out where you will be pouring and mixing and filling the molds.
Preparing juice for your recipe is next. The fruit that you intend to make juice of may be canned fruit, fresh fruit, frozen fruit, or prepared juices. Some recipes call for sugar, jello, Kool-aid, corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, or other additions.
Place fruit in a blender and puree it. Try peaches, bananas, lemons, oranges, berries, Add about 1 cup of water to each two cups of fruit puree or mashed fruit. For cream pops add one cup of yogurt, sweet cream, melted ice cream, or milk to sugar and fruit. You can try adding Sprite™ or other soda to your pops in place of the water. This makes the pops fizzy and special.
A package of Kool-aid mix or a box of Jello dissolved in hot water can add color and flavoring to your pops. Juices to try are grape juice, cherry, berry flavors, orange-pineapple, pineapple/banana, peach/white grape or fruit punch. Many of these are plenty sweet already so they don’t need sugar. One tablespoon of corn syrup sweetens a whole batch.
Use your imagination when it comes to ingredients; just remember too much water makes the popsicles too icy and too hard to eat.
Freeze Time
Popsicles are fun and simple to make and can be nutritious and cooling in the heat of summer. Just place your popsicles in the freezer on a level spot and leave them alone for at least three hours for small ones and four hours for larger pops. Over night is best. To remove the pops, run a trickle of warm water over the molds until they release.Waiting for your homemade popsicles to freeze may be the hardest part!
Popsicles are a frozen treat that all children seem to love. You can make your own out of fresh fruit and juices and they can be healthy sweet treats for long summer afternoons. All you will need besides the fruit or juice is a freezer and some molds either from a store or of your own design. So put on your creative thinking cap and try your hand at preparing this fun and cool snack.
Elece Hollis - Elece Hollis is a freelance writer. She has contributed to fourteen books through Snapdragon Editorial Group with several Christian ...
