Day 177 — White Chocolate Ice Pop

Today I finally decided to try the other flavors of that Philly cream cheese dessert spread.  I have made several pops out of the milk chocolate flavor, and have really liked them (and the spread in general).  So I was curious to see how the other kinds tasted:

I blended equal parts of the cream cheese and milk, then poured my pop.  To be honest, my expectations were low.  This stuff tastes ok, but isn’t nearly as delicious as the milk chocolate version.  But the ice pop mixture smelled exactly like a Chick-fil-a vanilla milkshake, so I knew it would be at least decent tasting.

The finished pop exceeded my expectations.  It had no cream cheese flavor at all, but the flavor of white chocolate really did come through, even more than in the spread alone.  Still not as good as the milk chocolate flavor, but not bad, either.

Day 170 — Chocolate Cheesecake Chunk Ice Pops

So, Father’s Day was this past weekend.  As I usually do, I showed my appreciation for The Husband and his dad (my wonderful, wonderful father-in-law) by feeding them.  A lot.  I made Eggs Benedict for breakfast, a gorgeous steak dinner (well, ok, Husband did the actual steak cooking.  I made the sides), and for dessert, brownie cheesecake bars.  As you’d imagine, these were both fantastic and fantastically rich, so we have a lot left over.  And what better way to use up leftover cheesecake than in an ice pop?

I mixed up a pop’s worth of the basic chocolate ice pop base, then pinched off little chunks of cheesecake to throw in the mold as I poured.  I made my chunks a little too big and they got stuck halfway down, so the pop had less cheesecake in it than I’d planned.  Still, there managed to be at least a little bit in every bite:

Given the ingredients involved, this one was pretty much a sure-fire winner.  I was pleased that the cheesecake chunks didn’t really freeze solid.  They remained creamy and a little chewy and really had a lot of impact in the pop.  I don’t think I’d ever make a cheesecake just to make these pops, but they’re a wonderful way to use up leftover desserts.

Day 157 – Coconut Peach Ice Pops

Sorry for the delay in posting today’s pop.  As I mentioned in my placeholder post, it was a busy day.

Anyway, a few months back I made a fantastic Pina Colada ice pop using coconut yogurt I’d found on clearance at Target.  This stuff is magical — it tasted liked heaven, and made an equally good ice pop.  Since then, I’ve been on the hunt for it in other stores (since my Target isn’t carrying the flavor any more), but it wasn’t until this week that I was able to find it.  I eagerly scooped it up (at full price!), and decided to use it with peaches:

I pureed the whole container of yogurt with 1.5 peaches.  I also chopped up a little but of peach to add chunks to one of the ice pops.  This mixture made three ice pops.

As expected, this made for some delicious ice pops.  The peaches definitely came in second to the coconut flavor, but they still shone through.  I feel like the mixture made the most of each ingredient. I definitely want to make this one again.

Day 154 — Creamy Blackberry Ice Pops

I know I have made several Jello popsicles before and I’m sure you all get the idea. but I just can’t help it. They’re delicious, and so I have to keep making more of them.

Ok, I know that these two things are pretty much made of sugar and chemicals. Delicious, delicious chemicals. Sorry. I’ll make something healthy tomorrow.

Today’s version uses blackberry flavored Jello, mixed with Cool Whip. I’ve already mentioned that I adore Cool Whip, so these were super fun to make.

I used the recipe on the side of the Jello box — mix the Jello mix with 1.5 cups of boiling water, them whisk in a container of Cool Whip. I reserved about an ounce of the Jello before putting in the Cool Whip, because I thought I’d probably need the straight stuff to keep the Zoku stick from pulling out the softer Jello/cream mixture. Of course, that meant that I had to eat a spoonful of Cool Whip to keep the proportions right. This is a tough gig sometimes, I tell ya.

Of course, I was impatient when I poured, so my bottom layer ended up mixed into the middle section. Still, it did it’s job, hardening the pop enough that I was able to pull it from the mold with no problems (there’s no way this pop would come out of the mold if I only used the Jello/Cool Whip mixture. It’s too soft and airy). And it gave the pop a nice dip-dyed effect:

Oh, did this taste good! Sure, the blackberry flavor is vaguely reminiscent of Robitussin, but that kind of disappeared as I ate more of the pop. And the creamy layer was just so yummy. That’s seriously the best descriptor I’ve got — yummy. Putting aside the fact that it’s a nutritional void, this was a great ice pop.

Day 53 — Orange Cream Ice Pops (aka Creamcicles)

Today was a better day then yesterday, so I had the time and energy to make a more ambitious pop. Specifically, Orange Cream pops, a childhood favorite.

The ingredients:

OJ, cream, sugar, vanilla. Triscuts are not among the ingredients. I just forgot to put them away.

I used all cream instead of a cream/milk mixture because honestly? We’d just finished our last bit of milk and I was too lazy to open the next carton. I think a mixture would be fine, though I’d use more cream than milk. This pop needs the texture.

Since I was only making one pop (we have a backlog here), I used 1.5 ounces of cream, a healthy splash of vanilla (probably a little less than a teaspoon) and a heaping teaspoon of sugar, though not all of it dissolved and made it into the pop.
The technique was the same as yesterday: pour, pause, suck, pour, wait. It all went smoothly.

When I was a kid, I liked to eat my creamcicles by carefully biting off the orange layer and eating the cream part last. I was delighted to see I could kind of do the same thing with this pop, though not as neatly or completely.

Once again, I had difficulty getting a good shot of the pop’s inside. I really need to figure out the macro function on my camera. In the meantime, here are the best shots I could muster:

These pops tasted great, and they evoked pleasant childhood memories.  I was glad I used a lot of vanilla, because it was necessary to allow the cream center stand apart from the outside of the pop.