Peanut and Pofaroo really love icy treats! Whether ice cream, freezies or slushies, they really enjoy having something cool to eat on a hot day.
I’d seen the Zoku Quick Pop Maker in stores for quite awhile before I decided this is something we would love to try out. I’m very conscious about the choices I make for my girls and this is a great option for me to make my own popsicles with more nutritional benefit and less sugar than store bought popsicles.
Like the Hamilton Beach Ice Cream Maker I reviewed, the Zoku Quick Pop Maker has to be placed in the freezer for up to 24 hours, making it not as quick as you might think with the name but once the unit has been frozen for the recommended time, it really is a Quick Pop!
We made two different popsicles. The first I thought I would go super simple and make our Quick Pops using pudding. Not exactly the popsicles I envisioned but we were pressed for time in making something more elaborate.
I made it using the amount of milk called for on the package of instant pudding (I know – not all that healthy) and I found it super thick and almost impossible to pour into the mould. I thinned it out adding more milk than the recipe called for and it poured a lot better into the mould.
With the thickness of the pudding, I went past the fill line and it took longer than the 7-9 minutes indicated to freeze the quick pops. But delicious none the less!!!
The second Quick Pop we tried, was from the Zoku Quick Pops Recipe Book – Watermelon Pops. These not only looked like a slice of watermelon, they were just as tasty.
With fresh watermelon blended to create the pink part of the watermelon with yogurt, honey (the recipe called for agave nectar which I didn’t have on hand) and some lemon.
The white layer a mix of milk, cream, fresh squeezed lemon, honey & water.
The green layer was the same as the white layer with some green & yellow food colouring added.
Oh…and I can’t forget the seeds – chocolate chips!!!
This recipe required that each colour layer be frozen in stages to ensure a perfect pop at the end clearly showing the layers of the watermelon!
(You can see the back 3 popsicles were slightly over the fill mark by the flare in the green.)
We really enjoyed making our pops and storing the leftovers (yes I did say leftovers) in the Zoku Storage Case. This isn’t something for the everyday quick icy treat from the freezer but I really liked the recipe options for a fancier treat that uses the goodness of fresh fruit! You can make up to 9 pops with one freeze (7-9 minutes per 3 pops) so definitely not something you would pull out if you have a houseful of children waiting for an icy treat.
The lemony goodness of the white and yellow parts of the pop really complemented the watermelon flavour and I know my next pop will be something lemony!! DELICIOUS!
By Nancy T.