Bullivant: Juicy ice pops a healthy, cool summer treat

By Claire Bullivant

The heat is on!  Here are my tips and tricks for trying to stay cool and healthy in an Arizonan summer.

My next business venture is bottled cold pressed juices. As this magnificent cold press juicer was being delivered, I stumbled over a recipe book on ice pops. I started to get excited. “What if we could have cold-pressed juice ice pops? And how about turning our fresh fruit smoothies into ice pops?”

I’m going to share some of my research so you can create your own and have a ready-made batch of healthy cool deliciousness on hand all summer.

An obvious rule is that the healthier the substance you start with, the healthier the ice pop is going to end up. For freezing juices, the pinnacle would be raw, organic cold-pressed juice, and then home centrifuged juice; all the way down to store-bought juice made from concentrate.

Whatever you freeze, add some simple syrup, honey or agave to it. The more sugar in the substance, the softer the product will be when frozen. If you put too much sugar (or alcohol) in the pop, it will not freeze hard enough.

That brings us on to boozy pops! A whole topic in itself, which I have the awful job of researching over the next couple of months!

If you like a creamier pop you can blend fruit with coconut or almond milk, kefir, milk or cream. Again, the same rule applies – whipping cream isn’t going to have fewer calories when frozen, so choose wisely. Add chia or muesli or whole pieces of fruit. Yum!

If you find a winner recipe, email it to [email protected]. If we decide to manufacture it, we’ll give you a prize and try to work your name into the name of the ice pop.

Claire Bullivant is the owner of Bead and Berry Coffee House in Maricopa.

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This column appeared in the June issue of InMaricopa.