Red, White, & Blueberry Popsicles

I interrupt today's regularly scheduled post to bring you a fun and exciting announcement: You guys! I submitted my kitchen makeover to the kitchn's big reveal contest and they accepted our submission! If you would like to vote - for my kitchen or for anyone else's - please hop on over! I will warn you that you have to be a registered user for the kitchn and apartment therapy's website so it's not as easy as just clicking a button. But, if you have it in your heart to vote for me, I would greatly appreciate it!

Okay, we now return you to our regularly scheduled blogging.

When we got back from blueberry (and strawberry) picking, there was a package sitting on the stoop. It was my order from Amazon.com which contained a popsicle mold! Whoo! I know we owned a popsicle mold at some point but I couldn't find it so I ended up ordering this star mold, which I fell in love with so it all worked out in the end. I decided to use our fresh berries to make a batch of popsicles because: why not? Since the strawberries were almost overripe - they tasted like candy because they were so sugary sweet - it turned out to be a great decision. My sister would say that it was the best decision ever because she was over the moon and Jupiter with these popsicles. Every time she ate one, she would weep and whine with joy (what a freak). So, my advice is to use super ripe berries because they make the best popsicles.

Since all popsicle molds are not created equally, and since not all berries are created equally, this post is more suggestive than instructive. I'm just sharing some guidelines - the amount of sugar you use will depend on the ripeness of your berries and your sugar preference and the amount of ingredients in total that you use will depend on the size of your molds.

Ingredients:

strawberries

coconut milk

blueberries

simple syrup

To make simple syrup, just combine equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan and heat over a low flame until the sugar has completely dissolved.

To make the strawberry layer, hull the berries, mash them up, and then add in as much simple syrup as you like. I mashed about ½ cup of berries and added maybe 1 tablespoon of simple syrup. Give it a little taste to make sure it's sweet enough. Remember that when food is cold, your tongue will detect less taste so it should be slightly sweeter than you'd like it to be at room temp. I happen to love the chunks of berries but if you're not keen on chunky fruit popsicles, you can definitely give this a whizz in your blender or food processor for a smooth puree.

For the second layer, mix a little coconut milk and simple syrup. I used about 1/4 cup of coconut milk with 1/4 cup simple syrup. Coconut milk has tons of coconutty flavor but not a lot of sweetness. Since human tongues can't taste as much when food is cold, it's important to enhance the flavor a bit. And that's why we add a little sugar to the coconut milk.

For the last layer, mash some blueberries and add some simple syrup. I used about ½ cup of blueberries and 2 tablespoons of simple syrup.

Fill the mold just shy of half of the way full with the strawberry mixture and then pop it in the freezer to firm up a little. Then, spoon the coconut mixture on top - just a sliver of coconut layer - and pop it back in the freezer to firm up. Lastly, spoon in the blueberry layer - the blueberry layer should take up almost half the mold - and add in a few whole berries for both flavor and color.

Pop the mold back into the freezer for at least 2 hours or until completely frozen. Obviously, I could've waited a little longer to add in the coconut layer, because it bled into the strawberry layer, but I ended up loving that. I liked the mix of coconutty flavor with the berry. If you want a more perfect looking pop, have more patience than I did.

Run the molds under a little warm water to loosen the popsicle and then enjoy!

The fresh berries make this popsicle super sweet and delicious and look at how cute and patriotic! I should have made these for the fourth but I didn't have the molds back then. But there's no wrong time to have a little national pride, right? USA! USA!

xoxo.