Host a Wholesome Homemade Popsicle Bar

Wholesome DIY Popsicle Bar

Wholesome Homemade Popsicle

The homemade popsicle above might not look like much. Mind you, it mostly looks wonky because I was licking it before I took the photo.

Regardless, it tastes AMAZING. It has a layer of homemade fudgesicle made from cocoa, maple syrup, and yogurt on the bottom, a layer of raspberry jam on top of that, a layer of honey-sweetened Greek yogurt on top of THAT, and a layer of fudgesicle blended with peanut butter and even more raspberry jam on the very top.

You could pay eight bucks for that delicious concoction at the hipster ice cream parlor downtown, or you could mix it up in the morning yourself and enjoy it in the afternoon. Your choice!

If you, like I, would rather mix up your own homemade popsicles in the comfort and privacy of your own home, then have I got a treat for you! Here’s how my kids and I like to spend an hour every now and then making ourselves a wide and wild variety of homemade popsicles. As the mom, I’m sneakily in charge of making sure that all the ingredients are wholesome (more or less), and the kids are in charge of making wild combinations of flavors that always taste delicious together.

Here’s how it works:

1. Gather your supplies. You can make a popsicle in a Dixie cup, but if you’ve got some fancy popsicle molds, now’s the time to whip them out. Mine are a little janky looking, because I used to use them to make crayon rocket pops a couple of years ago, but don’t worry–I’ve washed them since then!

We like yogurt popsicles, so my main ingredient is Greek yogurt sweetened with either honey or maple syrup. I’m a HUGE fan of fudgesicles, so I also make a batch of this homemade fudgesicle recipe to layer with the yogurt.

You can, of course, blend either the plain yogurt or the fudgesicle sauce with jam or peanut butter. Nom!

Other than yogurt, peanut butter, and jam, here are the other potential ingredients that I lay out for the kids and I to choose from:

  • mashed banana–it tastes really awesome frozen!
  • blueberries
  • cut fruit, such as strawberries or mango
  • mini chocolate chips
  • natural food coloring
  • heavy cream
  • other nut butters–if you’ve got some chocolate hazelnut butter on hand, this is the time to whip it out
  • sprinkles, sanding sugar, or other decorations
  • flavor extracts

You’re also going to need lots of little bowls for blending and experimenting, spoons for dipping and stirring, and I like to go ahead and just lay a layer of newspaper down on the counter to make clean-up easier.

2. Layer the ingredients. If you’ve got individual popsicle molds like my rocket pop ones, you can set the empty mold in a Mason jar to keep it upright. Then, you can begin to play! I like to layer my ingredients individually–a few mini chocolate chips at the very bottom, then some fudgesicle, then some banana, then some yogurt blended with jam, and maybe a few more chocolate chips to finish:

Wholesome DIY Popsicle Bar

This kid, however, likes to blend everything that sounds delicious all together at once. In this bowl, I’m pretty sure that she’s got peanut butter, jam, mashed banana, and fudgesicle, and you know what? It tasted AWESOME!

Homemade DIY Popsicle Bar

I have my set of India Tree natural food dyes on offer, but honestly, we rarely use them for this. There’s such a variety of color in the ingredients already!

Wholesome DIY Popsicle Bar

3. Freeze. We do make these in the morning and eat them in the afternoon sometimes, but homemade popsicles actually tend to do better if you let them freeze overnight. Regardless, because of the variety of different ingredients and the way that each one has its own way of freezing, run your popsicle under warm water for a few seconds before you try to release it from the mold.

You can eat all of your popsicles right away, of course, but these are also a great choice to have on hand for those times when the ice cream truck trundles by playing its creepy version of “La Cucaracha” (tangent: do ice cream trucks everywhere always play “La Cucaracha?” I have lived in three different cities so far, far-flung from each other, and in all three places the ice cream trucks ALWAYS play “La Cucaracha,” always as creepily as possible. What is UP with that?!?), or all the other kids on the block show up with Otter Pops, or you see popsicles at the store and you want them but they consist pretty much entirely of high fructose corn syrup and red dye…

Or, you know, you just want a popsicle!

2 thoughts on “Host a Wholesome Homemade Popsicle Bar”

  1. Thanks for the ideas. I make a lot of smoothies for my family and it never fails that I have extra left in the mixer so I make smoothie popsicles out of that. But with your ideas above I could stretch them out even further!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top