As Spring is holding the door open for Summer, I thought it’s time to get ready for it! And, as a part of the whole process, stock up on icy refreshments in the freezer~

My “freezer”, much like the rest of my kitchen, is regrettably undersized, sitting just inside the doll-house-sized bad joke of a fridge in all its shoeboxy glory. So once there’s anything else inside, like my usual loaf-tin holding a parfait or gelato, or say, a duck breast (the current occupant), it’s basically full. But! With a little wriggle-room and by now well-trained kitchen-Tetris skills, there’s always some space for a couple of ice lollies however. Ice lollies are insanely easy to make and one of the easiest ways to deal with excess amounts of (slightly over-) ripe fruit during the hot months of the year – plus one of the best ways to soothe any sweet-tooth aches while skipping next to all of the usual bad boys along the lines of sugar, fat and artificial don’t-worry-abut-its. After a trip to a local organic farmer’s community and a mindbogglingly good deal on a huge batch of raspberries, I decided to preserve some of them for the coming… (well, let’s be honest: days! But for less berry-crazed people…) weeks in the form of ice lollies to kick off this year’s homemade ice cream season~ So here we go, Raspberries at their frozen best! Depending on the size of your moulds, you’ll get 10-18 popsicles out of these amounts.

The Raspberry-Thyme Ice Lollies
300g Fresh Raspberries
300g Low Fat Fromage Blanc/Quark
100g Low Fat Greek Yoghurt
1 Tbsp Honey
2 Tsp Chia Seeds
2 Sprigs of Lemon Thyme or Regular Thyme, leaves carefully picked and cleaned
½ Lemon, Zest – add a bit of the juice if the berries are really, really, close to too sweet
1 Pinch of Fine Salt
Opt: Raw Cocoa Nibs or Toasted Coconut Flakes for Eye Candy – as soon as they’re out of the moudls, dip them into a bowlful of the topping that floats your boat at the time~

1) Place the berries and yoghurt in a food processor and whizz them into a fine purée.
2) Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl and stir in the chia seeds.
3) Cover the bowl with some clingfilm and pop it in the fridge.
4) Allow the seeds to soak for 1 hour while the very berry yoghurt chills through.
5) Retrieve the bowl, add all of the remaining ingredients, stir the lot of them until everything is very well combined and pop the bowl back into the fridge for another hour. The cooler the mixture is to begin with, the less time it’ll have to run, hide or split when it’s time to sit tight in the ice lolly moulds.
6) Speaking of… once the mix is thoroughly chilled, give it good stir (those chia seeds might have gathered near the bottom of the bowl) and transfer it into your lolly moulds.
7) Pop the moulds into your ice box and allow them to freeze for 6-8 hours.
8) If the moulds are giving you trouble as you’re trying to get your paws on the prize, dip them into hot water for a blink or two, then they should slide right off~

P.S.: If you don’t have fancy ice lolli moulds, empty yoghurt (smaller, kid-sized ones preferably) containers will do the trick nicely! The popsickle sticks are (at least over here) readily available in any supermarket’s baking/dessert section.

Enjoy~!

♥