Fresh Fruit Popsicles

I know I have been a bit quiet this summer. I didn’t sign my kids up for camp and they have been home with me. This week, I decided to have my kids help out in the kitchen. Why not have them help me make some of these recipes? I figured many parents are like me and need to get things done in the kitchen while their kids are around. The trick was to come up with straight forward recipes that the kids would enjoy and keep them entertained. It has been a fairly hot summer and we have just picked up a ton of fruit at the local market, we thought why not make popsicles? This recipe and kid friendly activity was inspired by one of the twins. He asked if we could make “chunky” popsicles. He wanted the type where you have the “whole fruit bits” in it. Instead of using the blender which results in a smooth uniform popsicle. I gave each child a bowl and a masher (or mortar and pestle). Then they were given a choice of fruit to mash or put in whole for their popsicle mold. The activity resulted in some beautiful popsicles. Kids of all ages would be happy to mash something…right? I will list out the fruit we used and the proportions but as always…you can swap out the fruit that is available to you.

Enjoy and have fun with this!

Jenny

Fresh Fruit Popsicles

Ingredients:

1 cup of fresh diced kiwi (green or gold)
1 cup of cleaned and hulled strawberries
1 cup of fresh blueberries
1 cup of fresh raspberries
organic maple or agave syrup

Directions

Make sure all the berries are cleaned and the strawberries are hulled. I have been cleaning my fruit with a baking soda solution (2 tablespoon of baking soda to 2 cups of water), please make sure to rinse the solution off the fruit as you would with soap.
The kiwis should have the brown skin removed and then diced into the size of 1/2in. x 1/2in.
*Each child was allowed up to 1 cup of fruit of choice in their bowl. My older kids saved a few pieces of fruit to put into their molds whole.
When the fruit is in the bowl, use the masher and mash the fruit to the desired consistency. (I noticed that most of my kids prefer a “chunky apple sauce texture”.)
Take the fruit mash and have the kids use a spoon to scoop it into the popsicle molds. Trust me this is a less messier option than to have them pour it from the bowl. The older kids might enjoy making a design with the whole fruit in the mold before spooning the mash in.
After the fruit mash is place into the mold, place the tops to cover them. (The molds we used had the popsicle sticks attached to the tops.)
Then place the popsicle molds into the freezer for at least 5hrs or till frozen solid. (We usually freeze the molds overnight).
When removing the popsicles from the molds, run the molds under warm water to loosen the popsicles.
Serve and enjoy!