The Daily Bite

Fancy ice pops are so hot right now. My blogroll is filled with gadgets, containers and convoluted recipes for cold, flavoured sticks of ice and fruit (and sometimes booze! But this is a blog about cooking with kids. I digress.).

I’ve seen some beautiful pops, especially those created in Zoku ice pop machines. Zokus work like ice cream makers, cutting the freezing time from four hours to about 20 minutes. I love these double rainbow pops, but this low-tech pop-in-the-freezer version from You Are My Fave is equally lovely and won’t take up valuable kitchen real estate.

Our kitchen overflowed with fruit this week, so we turned our market bounty into frozen treats for the kids. The results were delicious, but the 15 minutes it took to make those pops was possibly the most hectic of my five years of parenthood.

I love having the girls in the kitchen, but they were really, really excited about this project. Both kids were trying to balance on the same stool. Both were grabbing for the hand mixer, the wee one was putting blueberries into every empty (formerly clean) container she could find, and my big kid couldn’t keep her fingers out of the fruit mixture, the moulds trays, the spoons, et cetera. By the time we were done, I was frazzled, the kitchen was a mess, and both kids were covered in puréed fruit.

I have misplaced my old moulds (cheapies from IKEA), so we made due with ice cube trays. Small paper cups and wooden craft sticks would have been fine, too, if ours hadn’t been co-opted for arts and crafts. But since the girls are so taken with these homemade pops, I’ll try to scoop a set before the summer stock is all gone. I love this old-fashioned rocket pop mould, these light saber moulds are so funny, and there are lots more in this roundup. If you avoid plastic, stainless steel pops will do the trick. For a crowd, there’s this bulk order of disposable push-pops.

Despite the help from my sous chefs, we managed to turn out some tasty pops with minimal ingredients—watermelon, raspberries and strawberries, and peaches which made their summer market debut this week. We skinned and sliced the peaches, then puréed each fruit with a hand blender, adding a little grape juice or honey to taste. My big kid carefully poured the purée into ice cube trays, even layering some for extra fanciness. The wee one tucked a whole berry or two into the sections, then we popped the plastic-wrap covered trays into the freezer for about 20 minutes. When the cubes were semi-frozen, we poked toothpicks into the centre and left to freeze until solid (about four hours).

It’s easy to shake up ice pop flavours. Watermelon adds a lovely fresh note to tart berries. A bit of yogurt, fruit juice or ice cream is a nice addtion, too. I like the grown-up appeal of the Mexican-style ice pops from Paletas, a book of recipes from pastry chef Fany Gerson. I can’t wait to try avocado (my fave shake flavour at our favourite pho spot), and Greek yogurt with blackberries sounds divine. Cup of Jo tried them, with gorgeous results. These lemon-raspberry-yogurt pops also look refreshing, although I wonder if the kids would find them a bit tart. And I confess that I’m kind of dying over these malted milk ball pops. The low-on-the-glycemic-index agave nectar makes it all better, right?

Our pops were made entirely of fruit, so I’ve been giving them to the girls for breakfast. They’re delighted, and I’m officially the coolest mom on the block.

Images via Charlotte.Morrall (via Flickr), You Are My Fave and Blake Eligh.

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