Beat the Heat and Feel Like a Kid!

We've made it to Wednesday people! Thank goodness! Today's post was inspired by my looooong, air conditioning-free car ride home in the heat. I think I may have done a similar post before, so forgive me for that, but I think a few more popsicle recipes would be lovely right about now. So with that and with summer on its way, here are a few recipes to keep you cool in the uncomfortable heat!

For the healthy lifestyle...
Blueberry-Lavender Lemonade Popsicles
Women's Health magazine

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp culinary lavender
• 1 1/4 cups water, divided
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice (or juice of 1 to 1 1/2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen 

Directions

1. Bring sugar, lavender, and 1/4 cup water to boil in saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and steep for at least 30 minutes. Combine remaining water with lemon juice. 
2. Strain lavender from sugar syrup, add syrup to lemon water, and mix well. 
3. Evenly distribute into ice-pop molds, filling each about three-quarters full. Drop several blueberries into each mold, until the liquid reaches the top. Insert sticks and freeze for about 8 hours. 

To wow the crowd...

Fruit Salad Ice Pops

Martha Stewart

Ingredients

• 1 peach, cut into 1/2-inch slices (1/2 cup)
• 2 kiwis, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 3 ounces blueberries (1/2 cup)
• 4 ounces strawberries, hulled and halved ( 3/4 cup)
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups 100 percent white-grape juice

Directions

1. Arrange some of each fruit in eight 3-ounce ice-pop molds, making sure pieces fit very snugly. Pour enough juice into each mold to just cover fruit. Insert ice-pop sticks and freeze until solid, 6 hours (or up to 2 weeks).

For the non-traditionalist...

Frozen Chocolate-Dipped Bananas with Peanut Brittle

Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez for Gourmet Live

Ingredients

• 8 medium bananas
• 1 cup salted dry-roasted peanuts
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter plus more for baking sheet
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 12 ounces bittersweet (60% cacao) chocolate, chopped

Special equipment: 8 wooden popsicle sticks (4 1/2- by 1/2-inch); candy thermometer

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Directions

1. Line a large baking sheet with wax paper.
2. Peel bananas and carefully insert a popsicle stick into bottom end of each banana, halfway up stick. Arrange bananas on the baking sheet and freeze until firm but not frozen hard, about 1 hour. (You don't want the bananas so cold that the chocolate solidifies before you have a chance to add the peanut brittle.)

Make Peanut Brittle While Bananas Are Freezing:

1. Butter a rimmed baking sheet. Combine peanuts, sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a 2 1/2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan, and bring slowly to a boil over medium heat, stirring.
2. Position a candy thermometer so that it can rest on side of pan with bulb in mixture. Slowly boil, without stirring but tilting and swirling mixture in pan if it begins to color unevenly. Cook until deep golden and temperature reaches 295°F on thermometer, about 5 minutes.
3. Remove pan from heat and stir in butter and baking soda (mixture will foam up). Immediately pour molten candy onto baking sheet. Let cool completely, 45 minutes to 1 hour, then pry from baking sheet, and finely chop.

Assemble Bananas:

1. Melt chocolate in a deep metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove bowl of chocolate from pan. Working with 1 banana at a time, set banana in bowl and coat most of banana evenly in chocolate by spooning it on and smoothing it with the back of the spoon.
2. Immediately sprinkle peanut brittle over chocolate coating while chocolate is still wet, then return coated banana to wax paper–lined sheet, and let it set while coating remaining bananas. Refreeze bananas, if necessary, to firm up chocolate.

Cooks' note:
Bananas can be coated and kept frozen on prepared sheet, covered with plastic wrap after chocolate sets, 3 days ahead.

Happy baking!