Bright red cherry popsicles were always my favorite when I was a kid. I loved their sweetness and they way that they dyed my lips and tongue bright red as I ate them. Over the years, I lost interest in having my tongue dyed bright red for hours at a time and I stopped eating the popsicles. It was just as well because a cherry flavored popsicle has little to do with actual cherry juice, and I realized that most of the popsicles I had eaten were made with artificial flavoring, corn syrup and red food coloring. I still like the idea of cherry popsicles, but I make my own Homemade Cherry Popsicles with real cherry juice and no food coloring. They’re easy to make and a thousand times better than any “cherry flavored” pop you’ll eat.
The popsicles only have two ingredients: cherry juice and sugar. Use real cherry juice or a high quality cherry juice from concentrate, since that is where the flavor of the popsicles will come from. I dissolve the sugar into the cherry juice, pour into my popsicle molds and freeze. You can eat them the next day, or keep them on hand for a few weeks at a time so that they are on hand whenever you might want one.
You can simply freeze cherry juice and call it a cherry popsicle, but you will get a much better result if you add a little sugar into your juice. This is because foods taste less flavorful and less sweet when they are very cold, so the frozen juice alone won’t taste as sweet (or as strongly of cherries) as the juice itself did at room temperature. Adding a little sugar bumps up the flavor so that the frozen popsicle tastes even better than the juice you started with. The sugar also cuts the iciness of the juice alone, so the pop will melt a little more easily on your tongue as you eat it.
You can scale this recipe up or down to suit your needs and the number of popsicle molds you have. I have both large and small molds and I can either make 4 or 6, depending on which forms I use. You can also make your own popsicle molds using small cups that you might have around the house if you don’t have a designated set.
Homemade Cherry Popsicles
2 cups cherry juice
1/2 cup sugar
In a small saucepan, combine cherry juice and sugar. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
Pour cherry mixture into popsicle molds and freeze for 8 hours or overnight, until frozen solid.
Makes 4-6, depending on the size of the popsicle molds
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