Day 115 — Strawberry Creamsicle Ice Pops

I got a new big bucket o’ strawberries today, so brace yourselves for more strawberry pops this week.

First up, strawberry creamsicle. It’s been a rough day, so no ingredients shot today. But I mixed 3 large strawberries with about a teaspoon each of sugar and water. I really want to say that my fruit-based ice pops don’t need sugar, but sadly that’s not the case. Adding the sugar smooths out the flavor and produces a less-icy texture.

Anyway, I also made a small amount of the basic vanilla ice pop base (I only made one pop today, so I needed only around an ounce of the vanilla).

I poured the strawberry base, waited about 20 seconds, sipped out the middle and poured the vanilla. Ten minutes later:

This pop was so, so good. Better, I dare say, then actual creamsicles. I may need to make this one again.

Day 55 — Ice Cream Soda Ice Pops

I don’t buy soda very often; usually when I do it’s for guests and it tends to languish in the pantry until we eventually throw it out. But today we were out and about and I was suddenly parched, and for some reason I bought a huge bottle of soda. I finished about half, and decided to use the rest in an ice pop:

I’ve actually meant to make a root beer float pop for some time. I’ve even bought the root beer flavoring to do it, but I never seem to find a good time. But the idea of an ice cream soda pop sounded good, so I decided to go ahead and use the cola.

One of the warnings that came with my Zoku was that you cannot use it for carbonated beverages (not sure why), so before I could make my pops I needed to flatten my soda. I shook the bottle up a couple of times, then left it out on the counter for about an hour. After that, it was quite flat and ready to go.

Now, normally when I make a filled pop, I just drink the liquid I suck out of the molds. I tried that with the first of these pops, which was a mistake. Turns out warm, flat Pepsi is nasty stuff. For the other two pops, I sucked up the middles, but discarded the liquid.

These pops came out interesting. They slid out of the molds very easily — I almost didn’t need to use the release tool — and left a fair amount of frozen soda behind. I assumed that would mean the pops would be soft, but they were firmly frozen.

These pops were kind of a dud. The soda layer was very sweet, but seemed to lose all of its cola flavor (which mystifies me, since frozen coke is so good). The middle layer tasted the same as it always does since it was the usual vanilla recipe. I can only think that the root beer pops will taste better. If I ever get around to making them.

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.

Day 52 — Orange-Filled Lemonade Ice Pops

Today was…a day. It started with all three kids home (one on school break, one sick, one tiny and teething) and included a dryer fire (PSA from me to you — Do not leave the house while the dryer is running. I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d been out when it happened).

This is all a long way of apologizing in advance for the extremely basic nature of today’s pop. It’s just juice:

Since the ingredients were simple, I took the opportunity to try making filled pops again. I thought I could maybe use the translucency of lemonade to make a really interesting filled pop.

To make filled pops, you need to have all of your components ready at the start — in this case, two juices already in easy-pouring cups and the all-important straw. Pour the outside layer and wait until a thin shell freezes. I also poured the lemonade layer a little bit short, so that the orange would show at the bottom.

Use the straw to suck out the still-liquid innards, then fill with the second juice.

As you can see, these pops worked out quite nicely. You can get a sense of how translucent the pops are, and there’s also a hint looking at them that the center is different from the outside. It almost looks like a frosted orange pop.

I tried to get a photo of the inside of the pop, but that was a little difficult. This is the best I could do:

All in all, a nice little pop to end a trying day.