angathome

Showing off their banana milkshake juice pop moustaches. (We call them juice pops regardless of the ingredients!)

Now that the warm weather is here again, it’s time to dust of the frozen popsicle molds and make some juice pops. These are so quick and easy to make (I can even ask the older children to do them for me) and keep almost indefinitely, so there is always a snack sitting in the freezer ready to go. I like the fact that they are not too filling as some of my smaller eaters don’t need much of a snack before their appetite for the following meal is affected. Also, if I make the ones without sugar syrup in them, they are a healthy snack that even the toddlers love.

I should have put a bib on!

What do you need:

• A mold (shop bought popsicle molds, plastic cups and popsticks, plastic cups and teaspoons, or scooped out orange halves and popsticks.)

Ingredients:

• juice of any kind with fresh fruit chunks
• pureed banana and coconut milk
• milkshake mixture
• pureed rockmelon, sugar syrup and a twist of lime
• left-over softdrink
• pureed berries or fruit and sugar syrup

Simply puree your ingredients, fill the mold (adding fruit chunks to the bottom first if desired) and freeze. Adding sugar syrup to the juice pops helps prevent ice crystals forming, however I usually don’t include it to keep the children’s sugar intake down and they love them anyway!

Sugar syrup:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 strips of lemon zest

Heat the ingredients together until the sugar has dissolved. Remove zest and add to puree of choice before pouring into molds.

Filed under: Recipes, food and hospitality | Tagged: budget, cooking with children, home-made, kids in the kitchen, managing large families, menu planning, organisation, quick and easy recipes, snacks |