Homemade Rainbow Rocket Pops

One thing about my mom: she loves to buy people presents. I mean, she LOVES it. The build-up to Christmas starts, I swear, in September, and at some point in each telephone conversation after that point, she tells me what she has bought for whom for Christmas since our previous conversation. She's generally pretty good about adhering to my rules about what makes an acceptable present for the girls, although her enthusiasm causes her to cross the line occasionally (I've given in on My Little Pony, but I will NOT give in on ANY My Little Pony plastic playsets or accessories), and since I have a whole blog to whine about stuff I want, as well as my pumpkinbear wists, she always manages to surprise me with something that I have totally wanted forever, as well.

This year, one of the things that I got from my mother was a set of rocket pop popsicle molds. Do you remember rocket pops? Popsicles shaped like rockets? Don't you think it would be awesome to make your own rocket pops?

Well, I can assure you, it IS awesome. It is AWESOME!!!

You can make a rocket pop with just juice, just like you make a regular homemade popsicle (as if I'll ever be making any of those again!), but one of the cool things about rocket pops, out of the many cool things about rocket pops--Did I mention that they're shaped like rockets?--is that they're striated. Your rocket isn't just a rocket, but a RAINBOW rocket. You can't do that with juice!

You can, however, make a delicious, nutritious, frozen rocket rainbow treat out of yogurt. Here's how:

You will need:

• white yogurt, plain or flavored--I used Trader's Point Creamery low-fat vanilla. Another option is to flavor the yogurt yourself, with honey or spices, perhaps.
• liquid food coloring--my professional-grade food coloring is in paste form, so I used some generic liquid food coloring from the big-box grocery store. Another option is to experiment with natural food colorings--blueberry juice, colorful herbs, etc.
• several small bowls with a spoon for each bowl
• room in the freezer for each mold to sit nicely upside-down

1. Spoon some yogurt into several small bowls.

2. Letting the littles choose colors, add a judicious amount of food coloring to each bowl. For little littles, this is the time to review color identifications or mixing primary colors or just how many infinite ways there are to make brown.

3. The littles get to stir.

4. Letting the littles choose the order of colors, carefully spoon each color of yogurt into the pop mold. Try not to slop the yogurt against the inner sides of the mold as you spoon it in. As long as you put your yogurt in a spoonful at a time, each layer will sit nicely on top of the previous layer:

You could make themed popsicles, in patriotic colors or Halloween colors or spring colors, or you could practice the order of colors in the rainbow or complementary colors, or you could just go crazy, like us.

5. Leave a nice half-inch headspace at the top of the mold to account for the yogurt's expansion as it freezes:

6. The instructions that came with our rocket pop mold advised us to let the pops freeze for at least four hours. In order to avoid having to inform two small children every five seconds for four hours about whether or not the pops are ready, we made our pops as a family activity just before bedtime, and then the girls got to eat their pops for breakfast. Willow, actually, didn't care much for her pop--Trader's Point Creamery yogurt is on the tart side, which is what I think she found unappealing. I'll have to think up some kind of natural pudding or a different kind of yogurt for her future popsicles.

Sydney, however, was a big fan:

She ate two of these in a row, and another one later for her snack. When we make a new batch today (our current supply of rocket pops being dreadfully low), I plan to add in a couple of layers of frozen berries, just so I feel a little better about letting the baby eat nothing but frozen yogurt all day.

Because frozen yogurt + berries? You could totally live off of that.