So Hot We'll Melt Your Popsicle

When I ran to the grocery store the other morning to get stuff for scones, I remembered a recipe I had seen in Southern Living the night before. I pulled it up on my phone, and grabbed the stuff I needed for them because I was there at the store anyway. They're a version of a popsicle, but muchhhh better for you than everything you can buy thats loaded with sugar. Perfect for coming home after a long day at the lake!

Recipe: Berry-Banana Freezer Pops

Makes: ~ 4 pops

Recipe originated from: Southern Living, August 2010 issue ( http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=2003446 )

Compliments: Hot sun and cool water

Ingredients:
- 3 cups fresh or frozen berries
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt
- 1 banana
- 10 (2-oz.) pop molds
- Craft sticks


Directions:
1.Bring berries and honey to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes. Strain mixture into a bowl, using a spoon to squeeze out juice and pulp. Discard solids. Cover and chill 30 minutes.
2. Process yogurt and banana in a blender until smooth.
3. Pour into pop molds, alternating with berry mixture. Top with lid, and insert craft sticks. Freeze.

So I used frozen fruit, and I didn't have pop molds, so I bought small plastic punch cups, and used plastic spoons as the stick. To get them to stand up I put the end of the spoon through a piece of plastic wrap first, then stuck the spoon in the mixture and put the plastic wrap around the cup. I think it worked pretty well. I also didn't dirty the blender and just mashed the bananas into the yogurt by hand. They were good, but they melted fairly quickly.. which is why the disposable cup was nice. You could drip into it. They were tart-ish, and the berry part tended to melt faster than the yogurt, but it was good! I think if you need to get rid of frozen berries this is the way to do it. Also, if you are looking for an ice cream like dessert but don't want all the calories, this is a good alternative. I don't know if I'd make them berry again... I would probably do all strawberry or all peach or something so maybe they wouldn't be as tart. But they are pretty! Very summery and cool.

Abby xx