Ice lollies are one of my all-time favorite summer treats and making your own is a brilliant way to use up fruit and juices that may otherwise go to waste.  It is an activity that can be fun for kids to take part in and a fab way to get more fruit into your day to day diet too.

Equipment

• Ice lolly molds.  You can buy these from many supermarkets now, Asda and Tesco both stock them instore, Amazon has many different ones available too.  I bought mine from my local Lidl store.
• Blender or liquidizer.
• Fork, spoon.
• Measuring jug.
• Freezer.

Ingredients

• Soft fruits such as peaches, nectarines, berries, melon, mango, kiwi, banana…
• Alternatively, you could use frozen smoothie mix.
• Fruit juice such as orange or apple, or lemonade.

Method

• Work out the capacity of the molds by filling with water and then emptying into a measuring jug.  Mine hold around 250mls of liquid.
• Clean and prepare the fruit, or if using frozen smoothie mix, remove from the freezer for around 20 mins to soften before using.
• You can choose to either use the fruits in small chunks or blend with a little bit of juice or lemonade.
• If using chunks of fruit, add to the molds and fill with your choice of liquid before placing the sticks into the mold.
• If using liquidized fruits, carefully spoon the mixture into the molds and place the sticks in.
• Place in the freezer for a few hours to solidify.
• When removing, it may be easier to run the molds under a hot tap to ease the lollies out.
• Sit back and enjoy your cooling creations.

In the picture, above, I used raspberries and lemonade for the clear lollies, and frozen smoothie mix and orange juice for the orange lolly.

Ideas to try…

• Milkshakes.
• Mint, strawberry, and lemonade.
• Kiwi and pineapple chunks.
• Grape and melon with apple juice.
• Mashed banana and milk.
• Tropical fruit smoothie and apple juice.

What sort of lollies would you make?  let me know in the comments!!!