Glut: Very Easy Fruit Lollies

On one of our many pilgrimages to IKEA last year I spotted a very cute ice lolly set that I couldn’t resist. I’d read about how frozen foods can ease the pain from teething and knew that I’d get plenty of use out of them long after Sidney had a full set of gleaming white teeth.

A couple of weeks ago we melted in our annual summer heatwave, with temperatures soaring here in Brixton. At about the same time I discovered my lolly moulds in the drawer at the bottom of our dresser. Time to make something ice cold and delicious.

I had far too much fruit in the fridge after succumbing to the temptation of a multi-punnet bargain at Sunday’s farmers’ market. I had two punnets of ripe red strawberries and one of super sweet, juicy cherries that weren’t going to last the week. It was the ideal way to use them up.

There are lots and lots of recipes for fruit pops on the internet, all proving that it’s really, really easy to make healthy ice lollies. Lots add sugar, some add cream. I kept it really simple and left out added sugar as my fruit was sweet enough already, and I used Greek yoghurt rather than cream, for no other reason than that we always have it in the fridge and I rarely buy cream unless it’s for a specific recipe.

Essentially you can mix and match the ingredients to your taste. Using yoghurt or milk on its own gives an icier result than if you were to add cream, but leave the lollies out for a few minutes to soften up and it’s not a problem. I had six moulds and only filled three of them from this recipe. The other three were already filled with blueberry, banana and raspberry lollies I’d made earlier in the week.

Sidney loved his lolly. It was a little cold and hard to start with, but once it softened up a little he kept coming back for more. And luckily for me we had the paddling pool out so cleaning up the lolly that found it’s way into his hair, behind his ears and all the way down his tummy wasn’t as hard as it might otherwise have been.

Here’s how I made them.

a handful of mixed berries (fresh or frozen)

1 banana, sliced

2 tbsp yoghurt

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and whizz with a hand blender. I kept some of my banana slices whole and some of the berries chunky. It’s particularly nice to use whole blueberries because they pop when you eat them.

Pour the mixture evenly between lolly moulds and freeze for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.