Creamy Cherry Popsicles………..

We are on the cusp of summer and life is sweet. Sweet due to the plethora of amazing fruits ripe and in season for the months to come. I adore the sweetness of summer. For the past couple of weeks we have been appreciating the fresh strawberries from the Farmer’s Market and just this week the cherries arrived. I am in heaven! Cherries make me go wild with happiness!
Years ago we lived in New York for a brief few years, and while we were there we developed an annual cherry picking ritual. I honestly never liked cherries until I went and picked them for the first time myself. BOY, I had no idea what I had been missing all these years. There just ain’t nothing like a sweet ripe cherry in the heat of summer. I’d have to say rainier cherries are my favorite eating cherries, as for pie well the jury’s out, but any cherry would probably do.

Creamy Cherry Popsicles

1/2 a pound of organic cherries (pitted), about 1 1/2 cups) you could also substitute frozen cherries

1 1/2 cups of organic whole milk yogurt,

6-8 teaspoons of raw local honey

3 pastured egg yolks.

Puree the pitted cherries in a blender. Add in 6 teaspoons of honey, I would add slightly less than 6 if I did this again, and probably more cherries instead. I like to try to make a recipe with no more than a teaspoon of sugar per serving. Since I have 6 popsicle molds, I’d start out next time with say maybe 4 teaspoons of honey. Anyway, back to the recipe, after pureeing the cherries and the honey, add in 1/2 cup of yogurt and blend briefly. Get a funnel and place it in the popsicle molds and pour about an inch of the mixture into each mold. Place the molds in the freezer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile add in the remaining 1 cup of yogurt in the blender, 3 egg yolks (optional) and 2-4 teaspoons of raw honey, depending on your preference of sweetness. Add in 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.  Blend this mixture and place in the refrigerator. At then end of 20 minutes the first inch of mixture should be slightly frozen and you can now add in the remaining mixture into each mold.  This will give it a very pretty layered look. Freeze until solid at least 4-6 hours. (I actually had some extra, which I will use in the next batch of popsicles). If you don’t want all the extra steps to make the layers, just add alll the ingredients at once to the blender puree and fill your popsicle molds. All of my kids enjoyed these, score!!  Enjoy!!

Tagged as: cherries, creamy cherry pops, popsicle molds, popsicles, summer, yogurt based popsicles