Frozen Juice Pops and Variations

Today is popsicle day! So here is a nice healthy snack for kids during the hot days of summer, or in my case - in Louisiana or southern states - still hot or really warm days of autumn. There are many variations so I will start with simple to most difficult.

What you will need:
KEEP IN MIND as there are many variations you can use the basic versions.

- An Ice Tray (regular old ice tray or special mold ice tray)
- Tooth Picks OR popsicle sticks
- plastic wrap OR aluminum foil
- Juice (AVOID frozen juice mix or from concentrate)
- fruit (optional for the more difficult parts)

NOTE: as this is frozen juice avoid the thinner juices like apple juice or flavored juice mixes.
HOWEVER for the version where fruit is added these are acceptable.

ALTERNATE VERSION FOR A LARGER SIZEUse the kid sized cups, that often means placing plastic wrap over each cup and sticking a popsicle stick in each one. This is for toddlers to children about 3-7 year olds. The ice cubes are for 1-4 year olds as they are smaller and easier to hold.
 

THE MOST SIMPLE VERSION

The most simple version, get your ice tray, fill with juice of choice.
SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS VERSION stick with thicker juices such as orange, fruit, mixed berry, mango or other citrus. Or to be more specific try to avoid apple juice, some light lemonades. Juice mixes are even better!


1. Choose your juice.
2. Pour the juice in the slots, either your regular ice tray, or as shown a special ice tray mold.

3. Lay plastic wrap OR your aluminum foil down tightly over the tray.
4. Put in the tooth picks OR Popsicle sticks.
NOTE, plastic wrap and tooth picks work well, and popsicle sticks and aluminum foil work together. When trying to poke a hole with the popsicle sticks through the plastic wrap required me to hold the plastic wrap down. Tooth picks and aluminum foil didn't seem to be much of an issue.
Examples as show to the right and below.
ITS OK IF YOU TEAR THE plastic wrap or aluminum foil. no one can get it just right the first time.
Its a good idea that if you cannot get rounded tooth pics to cut off or round off the sharp parts BEFORE sticking them in the ice cubes for younger children. (IE The one to 3 year olds.)

5. Place in freezer for 4 hours or overnight, and wait.
6. Carefully remove plastic wrap or foil and enjoy. Popping them out is a little difficult or if you want run a LITTLE bit of water over the top to help pop them out and ENJOY!

SLIGHTLY MORE COMPLICATED VERSIONS!

The steps are basically the same as the simple version EXCEPT BEFORE adding the juice, place some fruit in the bottle of the tray such as this

OR add the fruit and stick a toothpick in them to hold them in place. OR if you really want a challenge, and you want the fruit on the bottom of the popsicle or a popsicle fruit kabob slide them  on the stick and make sure it all fits in the slots and that the last piece of fruit sticks out just above the cube tray area so that that last bit of fruit is on the top and when you pop it out and hold it right side up the popsicle has fruit all the way to the bottom.

Or like me, in an experiment I added gummies to her popsicles with orange juice mix.
The fruit or gummies or other appropriate freezable items work well with juice, lemonade or thinner juice mixes. I used hawaian punch orange juice mix.
A good mix is a lime juice mix or lime kool-aide with raspberry or tart or citrus fruit!

The next blog post will show my attempt at these and how well or not so well the experiment went!
Another version is fruit yogurt pops or even jello yogurt or jello pudding pops you can make yourself.

OR if nothing else, take a yogurt cup, stick a popsicle stick in it and freeze and instant yogurt on a stick! Basically the trix yogurt on a stick idea.

Yet this can be done from whatever yogurt you like! This means keep the aluminum lid on and just shove the popsicle stick in.

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Thank you for reading!