Homemade Fudge Pops With Tutorial

Saturday afternoon I finally had a little spare time to try the recipe for homemade fudge pops. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com. I have to say, that I have been using allrecipes quite a bit lately, and it is fabulous  (I'm sure many  of you have discovered it's magic long ago. I am just a late bloomer, I guess)! I swear you can find any recipe in the known world on their website!! Anyway, the fudgesicles were extremely easy to concoct, and uber cheap!!!! I figured out that 24 fudgesicles cost $1.35. I am extremely happy about that!

Here is the recipe:

Homemade Fudge Pops

(makes 12 frozen treats. I doubled the recipe to make 24 frozen treats.)

You can also find the recipe HERE

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

4 cups milk ( I used 1% milk)

• Stir together sugar, flour, and cocoa powder in a large sauce pan (I double the recipe, so I used  large pot)

•  Stir in half of the milk into the dry mixture and whisk until completely combined and smooth.

•  Stir in the rest of the milk.

•  When the rest of the milk is completely incorporated. Heat on medium heat. 

•  Stir the mixture constantly (so that it won't scorch) until it comes to a full rolling boil.

• Continue stirring and allow the contents to boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool  until warm (about 20 minutes).

•  Pour warm mixture into an empty (and clean) ketchup or syrup bottle. I do this because it is much easier to fill the molds.

•  Fill each section of the mold about 7/8 full.  About 1/4 cup per mold.

•  When all the molds are filled, place to mold top on each section.

•  Of  course, I discovered that several of my tops are missing ( naughty children). I had to improvise by using four small plastic knives I dug out of my stash of plastic silverware.

•  Place in the freezer until completely frozen ( I usually just let them stay in overnight).

• To remove fudgesicles from the molds, run hot water over the molds for a minute or two, or let sit on the counter for five minutes before removing.

 If you don't own frozen pop molds you can use 4 ounce or 6 ounce clean yogurt containers. You can also use 4 ounce wax coated or plastic paper cups (if you use plastic cups you can wash and reuse them). Just line them up on a large cookie sheet. Craft sticks (found at most dollar stores) or small plastic knives work great for handles. To get your "handles" to set straight, chill the fudge pop mixture for one hour before inserting them.

Frozen Fruit Smoothie Pops

I hit a small snag in my eternal quest to eliminate high fructose corn syrup and processed foods out of our diet (and not spend a bazillion dollars on frozen Summer treats). You see, it is Summer break, and my kids adore popsicles (particularly, Otter Pops). They can go through oodles of them on a hot Summer day.  I didn't feel like I could cut the kids off entirely from one of their favorite Summer fare( I am a softy like that). The problem was giving my little ol' brain quite a workout. Then the other day when I was at the grocery store I saw a display of  frozen pop molds. They were priced right at $1.28 a set! I thought, why not make my own frozen pops! At least I will know what ingredients are in them.

Yesterday, as I was digging through the fruit basket, I noticed quite a lot of uber ripe fruit, and I knew there was a carton of Nancy's Organic yogurt in the fridge that need to be finished up. Hey, I could make the fruit and yogurt into smoothies, or better yet, smoothie pops!

I pureed the ripe fruit in my food processor (my blender is a little wimpy, and the processor does a better job of making a smooth puree). Then I dumped the fruit and yogurt in the blender and mixed them together. I made a little bit of a mess, at first.

But, then I realized a funnel might work better!

 Once I got a rhythm going filling the molds went fairly quickly. The mold handles have a hollow bottom, and a straw so that kids can slurp up any melted juice when they are done eating their treat (pretty smart).

After I filled all the molds I put them in the freezer to set up.

This afternoon was the official taste test. All the kid's (big and little) thought they were delicious! I'm just happy that they a fairly healthy (and now my kid's are getting a serving of fruit when they are having a treat).

Of course, after I started cleaning up I noticed a couple of empty ketchup bottles that would have made filling the molds up A LOT easier! They are now filled with leftover smoothie mix to refill the rapidly emptying molds!

This week's smoothie flavor is Strawberry, Mango, Banana. The beauty of this recipe is that you can change out the fruit for whatever is on hand. Canned fruit would work great, too.

Frozen Strawberry, Mango, Banana Smoothie Pops
1 pound of ripe strawberries, hulled
5 very ripe bananas, peeled
3 mangoes, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups of plain or vanilla yogurt

Puree fruit until smooth. Add in yogurt and sugar (if desired). Blend until well combined. Pour into frozen pop molds and freeze until firm (about 8 hours. I let my sit overnight). Set molds in hot water for a minute or two to make removing the pops easier.

My kids have now requested chocolate pudding pops, watermelon pops, and just regular juice pops. Of course, I will post each of these experiments (for any inquiring mind, who wants to know)!