Everyone loves a fruity lolly! Here are 3 easy ice-lollies plus a bonus recipe for almost instant frozen yogurt. And all with no added sugar!
As usual, the British weather can’t make its mind up. One day glorious, hot, sunny, not a cloud in the sky. We rush out and buy sun cream, garden toys and ice-lolly moulds. Next day overcast, cold, rainy and windy. Gah.
(Note for Americans – ice-lollies are what you call “popsicles” I believe.)
Bring on the ice-lollies!
My daughter Kipper meanwhile, at the first sniff of sunshine, starts begging for frozen treats, ideally on sticks. Given that she can easily eat several at a go, I try to make these as healthy as possible, and ideally, with no added sugar. Thus, she thinks she’s getting a real treat, and I’m happy that she’s scoffing down several of her 5-a-day. Win-win!
Thanks to her impressive levels of ice-lolly consumption, we’ve come up with a number of easy ice-lollies that are simple to make, look great, and are delicious and refreshing. Each one also contains around a portion or so of fruit, so counts towards your 5-a-day target.
Here are four of Kipper’s favourites fruity frozen treats, all of them prepared with no added sugar. Hurrah!
Cute and easy ice lollies
There are loads of adorable ice-lolly moulds available. We recently bought these cute umbrella ice-lolly moulds
during a spell of good weather, so despite the subsequent rain/cloud/wind, we made some lovely fruity ice-lollies in them.
Our favourite way to make ice-lollies is simply to cut up ripe fruit into little bits, shove the bits into the mould, and pour apple juice over the top to fill the gaps and freeze into a lolly. If you don’t want to use apple juice, other kinds of juices work just as well, and you can dilute them with water if they’re a bit too sweet without.
Some fruits work better than others in these easy ice-lollies. Really ripe raspberries are great as you can just give them a quick mush with a fork and stick them in the mould. Hard fruits like apples work less well. This was the first time we’ve used tangerine in an ice-lolly, but from the look on her face, I’d say Kipper enjoyed it.
Frozen Yogurt
As well as ice-lollies, we also love this almost-instant frozen yogurt.
I usually keep a bag of frozen berries in the freezer, so I can add a handful to a crumble or cupcake mix, or knock up a quick dessert when the fruit bowl is looking bare.
Kipper was ice-lollies out, and wanted something in a cone instead. I was reticent to give her a scoop of ice-cream so we whizzed this up instead. I think she was actually more excited about it having watched it being made.
Two ingredients – just frozen fruit and plain yogurt. What could be simpler?!
Ready, steady, GO – traffic light ice-lollies
Our ‘traffic light lollies’ are made from pureed fruit, carefully poured into moulds to create the red, yellow and green stripes, and then frozen. They’ve been a big hit, and are refreshing and delicious!
If you have rocket shaped ice-lolly moulds, you can use this same technique to create stripy rocket ice-lollies.
UPDATE: Kipper has taken to wearing ear defenders
when we puree the fruit in the blender! If your small person doesn’t like home appliance noise, you may find these a help.
The easiest ice-lolly ever! Say it with flowers
Finally, the frozen ‘flower’ lolly is the simplest ice-lolly of all.
All you need is fruit, cookie cutters, and a stick. You can make one or many, and they don’t take long to freeze. You can even serve them unfrozen in a pinch!
Another advantage of frozen-fruit-on-a-stick, is that it doesn’t go all drippy and make a huge mess as it melts – although some fall-out is inevitable, regardless of the type of lolly. At least when children are eating them, anyhow.
Plus, don’t feel you have to make these lollies flower-shaped – I fully expect that by the end of the summer we’ll have had star lollies, animal lollies, number lollies… I have around 150 cookie cutters so they could get quite varied!
All the instructions for these delicious and refreshing frozen treats are below. Enjoy the sunshine!
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📖 Recipe
Four fruity frozen treats
Equipment
- 12 ice-lolly moulds
- Food processor or mini-chopper
Ingredients
For the fruity umbrella lollies
- 2 tangerines
- 100 g strawberries
- 100 g blueberries
- Apple juice
Almost-instant fruity frozen yogurt
- 125-150 ml unsweetened plain or fruit yogurt
- ½ cup frozen mixed berries – I used blueberries, raspberries and blackberries
- 1 wafer cone (optional)
for the Traffic light ice-lollies
- 2 kiwi fruits
- 3-4 apricots
- 1 slice watermelon
Flower lollies
- 1-2 cm thick piece of watermelon (approx 1 inch)
- ½ an apricot
- OR other fruit of your choice e.g. kiwi, peach, melon, pineapple etc, cut into 1-2cm (approx. ½-1 inch) slices
Instructions
For the fruity umbrellas
- Peel the tangerines, separate into segments, and chop each segment into 3-4 pieces. Chop the strawberries into small dice. Cut each blueberry into quarters.
- Divide the fruit between the ice-lolly moulds. You can put stripes of different fruit into each one (see photo) or make single-fruit lollies – your choice!
- Gently pour apple juice over the fruit to fill the moulds. Gently tap the moulds, or use a skewer or the tip of a knife to poke out any bubbles and encourage the juice right down to the bottom.
- Freeze for several hours or overnight, until the ice-lollies are thoroughly frozen. Enjoy!
For the frozen yogurt
- Tip the yogurt into a food processor or mini-chopper. Add the berries, then process for up to a minute until everything is combined into a frozen, soft, creamy mass.
- Scoop into a wafer cone (or a bowl) and eat!
For the traffic light lollies
- Peel the kiwi fruit and blend to a puree. Separately, remove the stones from the apricots and puree. Finally, cut the flesh from the watermelon and blend separately – the watermelon puree will be more liquid than the others.
- Divide the kiwi puree between 6 lolly moulds. Carefully pour ⅙ of the apricot puree on top of the kiwi layer in each mould. Finally, pour the watermelon puree into each mould to fill it.
- Insert the sticks and freeze until solid.
Flower lollies
- Use a flower cookie cutter to cut a flower shape out of the watermelon. Use a smaller circle cutter to make a hole in the centre, then use the same cutter to cut a circle from the apricot half.
- Insert the small circle of apricot into the hole in the watermelon flower, then push a stick through both to secure.
- Freeze until solid.
Notes
Nutrition
More delicious frozen dessert recipes
I love how easy these ice-lollies are to make, but if you have a bit more time, you might also enjoy some of these other frozen desserts.
- Watermelon and coconut ice-lollies – also sugar free, and super refreshing
- Chocolate pudding pops – sugar free frozen chocolate pudding on a stick – yum!
- Ombre blueberry yogurt lollies (vegan) – beautiful ice-lollies packed with fresh berries
- Fresh peach ice-cream – creamy, fruity and delicious!
July’s Family Foodies event is on the theme of Chill Out, Baby! so these frozen treats should fit the bill nicely. The event is hosted by Vanesther at Bangers & Mash, and Louisa at Eat Your Veg.
Vanesther
Super cool ice lollies – absolutely love them and I know my girls will too! Four perfect entries for this month’s Family Foodies challenge – thank you so much for entering 🙂
FFF
My pleasure – thanks for hosting! Looks like there are lots of other delicious sounding goodies this month too 🙂
Tandy | Lavender and Lime
I love that these are all sugar free! Hope you get a decent summer 🙂
FFF
Thanks Tandy! The sun is shining today – definitely ice-lolly weather 🙂
Sarah Christie
These look amazing
FFF
Thanks!