Pink Lemonade Popsicles

My little one has been asking to make popsicles for such a long time, so tonight was the night.  Off to bed we would go afterwards and they'd be ready for a delicious snack the next day.  And with the temperatures they're calling for, we are going to need a frozen treat like this to cool off.

Please do not mind my photo of the popsicles.  I couldn't find my moulds for the life of me, so we had to improvise.  What you see is a result of placing the mixture in a parchment lined loaf pan, putting in a popsicle stick through when they were pretty solid and then cutting them into 8 pieces afterwards.

Ingredients:
1 tsp freshly grated lemon zest (I always use a bit more!)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 4 lemons)
1/2 cup and 2 tbsp sugar
1-3/4 cup water
handful of frozen or fresh raspberries
pinch of salt

Directions:

1. In a blender or food processor, combine the lemon zest, juice and sugar.  Pour in water.  Add the raspberries and salt and blend until the mixture is smooth and pink.

2.  Pour into your popsicle moulds, dividing evenly among the moulds.  Cover and freeze until solid, at least 5 hours.    If you are using sticks, insert them into the moulds when they are partially frozen and will stand on their own, about 2 hours.  Continue to freeze them until solid.

If you're liking me and you can't find (or don't have) moulds, there are several workarounds.  As I mentioned above, you can line a loaf pan with parchment paper that overhangs on all sides and pour the mixture in.  The directions above didn't work too well for me as the mixture was still pretty liquidy 4 hours after it was placed in the freezer.  So what I did was at that time I placed the popsicle sticks in, went to bed and woke up in the morning.  Of course I couldn't pull out the block, so I cut it into 8-10 squares in the pan.  Then I was easily able to remove it from the pan and put them back in the freezer as individual pops.  If yours freezes up faster, then slice them individually  after 3-4 hours.

You can also use paper cups or individual glasses and follow the steps above for inserting the popsicle sticks.  When ready to eat, you may have to let them sit at room temperature for up to 5 minutes so they can be easily removed.

Alternate flavour: Instead of raspberries, add 2-3 strawberries (fresh or frozen) that have been hulled.

These had quite a tangy flavour, but they are really quite good and refreshing on such a hot day!