Lemony Rainbow Popsicle Recipe
This is my kids’ first week of summer vacation and we are all so excited! Never mind the fact that the temperature in the San Francisco Bay area hasn’t topped 70 degrees even once in these first few days — we are determined to do all the summery things we can as soon as we can. So far we’ve visited the beach, the pool, and the library and we tie-dyed t-shirts in the back yard. But the #1 thing on my boys’ summer list of activities was to stock the freezer with popsicles.
They want to eat ice pop after ice pop as they run from the kitchen to the back yard and back again. I want to teach them to make healthy food choices. We’re both happy with these Lemony Rainbow Popsicles.
These pops are colorful, tasty and they’re made almost entirely of fruit so they’re completely free of mom-guilt. You can use fresh fruit if you like, but this recipe (below) already has a lot of steps with the pureeing and the layering and the waiting for the popsicles to freeze so I opted to save a little time by just buying bags of frozen fruit.
What You’ll Need:
12 oz. frozen raspberries
12 oz. frozen mango chunks
12 oz frozen pineapple chunks
3/4 cup lemonade, divided
1-2 tablespoons sugar (optional)
How to Make Them:
The first thing you need to do is make some room in your freezer for the popsicle molds. If you have space already that’s great, but my freezer is small and always pretty crowded, so I had to do a bit of rearranging to get them in.
Next, thaw the frozen raspberries slightly. You can let them sit out on the counter for awhile, or microwave them for a minute or so. They don’t have to be room temperature — mostly you just want them to be soft enough to blend easily. Put the berries in a food processor with 1/4 cup of lemonade and puree until smooth. If the mixture is too tart, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar and give it another quick spin to combine it. The puree will have a lot of seeds in it. If you want to remove some of them, push the mixture through a mesh strainer with the back of a spoon. If you prefer you can just leave the seeds in. No harm in getting a bit more roughage into your family’s diets, right?
Transfer the raspberry puree into a bowl and give the food processor a quick rinse.
Make the mango puree, following the same steps you used for the raspberries: thaw, combine with 1/4 cup lemonade and blend until smooth. No need to strain this mixture.
And finally, make the pineapple puree. Same steps here too: thaw, combine with 1/4 cup lemonade and blend.
Now it’s time to assemble the popsicles. You can add the purees in whatever order you like, of course, but I chose to do them in rainbow order — red, orange, yellow or raspberry, mango, pineapple. Begin by filling about 1/3 of each mold with the raspberry puree, then pop the molds into the freezer for about 15 minutes or so to let them set up a bit. The reason for this is that if you add the second batch of puree when the first one is still liquid they will mix together and you won’t get the nice stripey rainbow effect. When the raspberry layer is firm enough, gently add the mango puree to the next third of the mold. Let it set up for an additional 15 minutes, then fill the rest of the way with the pineapple puree. Add the sticks, then freeze 3 or 4 hours (or longer) until the popsicles are frozen all the way through.
This recipe will make approximately twelve 3 oz. popsicles. If you have some puree leftover when you’re done assembling the pops, all three flavors are delicious mixed into a glass of lemonade. Enjoy!
Find More Ideas for Summer Fun Here:
