Cherry Chocolate Creamsicles

I noticed this morning that Zulily has Tovolo popsicle molds on sale (plus a bunch of other Tovolo kitchen stuff, but the popsicle molds are the only things I personally use).  I’m a big fan of those popsicle molds.  I have three sets and they’re pretty much always all in use.  At any given time, there are about ten popsicles in our freezer, and as soon as I have enough clean molds to make another batch, they get filled back up again.  We don’t limit them to just summertime – I make popsicles and creamsicles all year round, using all sorts of nutritious ingredients.  So in honor of a sale on my go-to popsicle molds, here’s our current favorite recipe that I invented a few months ago.  Our boys request these all the time, and even my mother in law thought they were great.

Frugal Babe’s Cherry Chocolate Creamsicles

• 1.5 cups frozen cherries *
• 1 avocado, peeled
• ¼ cup good quality chocolate protein powder
• ¼ cup cacao powder
• ¼ cup cashews
• 3 Tbsp cacao butter OR coconut butter * (adds creaminess)
• 1 Tbsp hemp seeds (optional, but adds some extra nutrition)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup keifer or yogurt (dairy or not, it’s up to you)
• milk of your choice (I use homemade almond milk, because that’s what I usually have on hand), add sparingly

Place all ingredients except the milk into a blender and blend until smooth.  It should be fairly thick, but still pourable (if you’re using a Vitamix, you’ll have to use the tamper wand to get it all down into the blades.  If you have a regular blender, this will probably still work but you’ll need to stop and scrape the sides, and probably add some extra milk to get it blending well).  If it’s too thick, add a little milk until it gets to a consistency that you can pour.  The less liquid you add, the more “fudgy” your creamsicles will be.  Adding more liquid makes them more “popsicle-like.”    Pour the mixture into popsicle molds and freeze until solid.  This recipe makes enough to fill about 10 popsicle molds – if you don’t have that many, you can make less or just eat the leftovers as a smoothie

Enjoy!

* I get my cacao butter in bulk from The Raw Food World when they have it on sale in their “at cost specials” section.  Coconut butter works too, or you could just add more cashews if you like, since they also add creaminess when blended.  I get organic frozen cherries at Costco.  We go a few times a year and come home with enough organic frozen berries and cherries to fill half of our deep freeze.  The berries and cherries alone are worth the membership to Costco as far as I’m concerned!