Black Forest Popsicles – A Healthier Frozen Treat for Summer!

This post has been compensated as part of my ongoing partnership with Barlean’s and may contain affiliate links. As always, all opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that keep me creative in my tiny kitchen!

Cool off with these intense chocolate + cherry-studded popsicles! They’re packed with antioxidants + nutrients from over a dozen fruits & veggies.

The past few weeks here in New York have been one big massive heatwave, and I for one am over it.

Between the heat and the humidity (and the broken air conditioning in my car), my family has been all about the icy cold snacks.

And as much as I’d love to eat ice cream every single day, that’s not exactly something I should be indulging in all the time.

So when I got these super cute Mod Pops popsicle molds from Zoku and an assortment of powdered greens from my friends at Barlean’s, I knew that healthier popsicles were totally going to happen.

Fresh cherries have been on sale at my local supermarket lately, and they’ve been so juicy and sweet that I’ve been stocking up every time I go shopping.

I figured I’d do a riff on one of my all-time favorite ice cream flavors, Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Me and my mom used to get our own individual pints of Cherry Garcia, grab spoons, and dive in while watching movies together.

We both loved the flecks of chocolate and chunks of cherries buried in the ice cream.

So, so good.

I decided to make these popsicles healthier than your standard frozen treat by using fresh fruit along with some dark chocolate, almond milk, plain yogurt, and an extra boost of goodness from Barlean’s Chocolate Silk Greens Powder.

The chocolate in the powder is super smooth and is loaded with antioxidants from fair-trade cocoa along with nutrients from more than a dozen fruits and veggies. It’s non-GMO, gluten free, soy free, dairy free, and vegan, to boot.

AND it contains natural plant fiber from chicory and flaxseed.

My husband and son both have lactose issues, so having options like this at home is awesome. I can make chocolate milk with a nice nutritional boost, and it won’t bother their stomachs.

For the popsicles, I used almond milk as the base along with some plain, whole milk yogurt. Both of them are able to eat yogurt because of the live and active cultures, and I figured it’d make these popsicles a bit creamier.

My kiddo was suuuuper excited to help me assemble these popsicles. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have even caught him learning to use a cherry pitter for this recipe!

To make these popsicles similar to Cherry Garcia, I wanted to chop up the cherries and some chocolate so each frozen pop would be studded with chunks of both.

We went pretty heavy on the chunks, and it worked out really well. You could skip the chunks altogether if you want a smoother popsicle experience.

Just be sure to stir the liquid a little with the stick once you pour it into the molds and knock the molds down against the counter a few times to get the liquid to fill all the gaps and crevices in between all those solid bits.

I asked my son if he wanted to do only chunks of cherries, or if we should also blend some up with the base, and he voted for blending.

Hey, it’s the best of both worlds!

It was a great addition to the chocolate powder, and made the liquid a really pretty color!

Assembling the sticks for the Zoku molds was super simple – the handle just snaps right into the base. Once you add your ingredients into the molds up to the fill line, you snap the handles into place and pop ’em into the freezer until set – usually at least 8 hours.

This was a super fun summer project for me and my son to work on together, and he’s already excited about making new and unique flavors for our next batch!

I told him we can also make each one a different flavor – it doesn’t all need to be the same stuff! Variety is the spice of life and all that jazz, right?

I like the convenience of having the popsicles individually sealed. You can easily place them all onto a tray or bucket of ice and let them chill out (pun totally intended) until people are ready to eat them.

And bonus points for being reusable! I love finding more and more ways to cut down on kitchen waste (and I have a post in the works on that topic, so stay tuned!).

We will most definitely be making more icy cool treats in the very near future!

The froth from the blending of the powder mixture gave these popsicles a fun layered look. The texture is a little icy, likely from the almond milk, but it didn’t bother us one bit.

The Zoku molds are BPA and phthalate free, and come with little drip guards that work great if your kiddo doesn’t hold his popsicle sideways while he eats it.

Ahem.

I also really liked the sleek design of the piece that holds all of the popsicles in the freezer. I have limited space in my kitchen, and it slid nicely between items in my super-packed freezer with minimal freezer Tetris skills required.

All in all, these Black Forest Popsicles were a huge hit! They’re just as tasty as a black forest cake or a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream without the guilt!

What’s your favorite frozen treat? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below!

Looking for more dessert recipes? Check out some of our favorites:

• Rich Cocoa Brownie Bites
• Elvis-Style Frozen Bananas
• Sweet + Salty Dark Chocolate Clusters
• 5-Ingredient Samoa Cereal Bowls
• Orange Scented Cannoli Dip
• Double Chocolate Chip Cookies with Vanilla Icing
• Dessert Nachos with Fresh Baked Cinnamon Tortilla Chips
• Tolon’s Strawberry Basil Shortcake
• Cranberry Orange Snickerdoodles
• Bourbon Bacon Pecan Pie with a Whole Wheat Crust
• Chocolate Cream Pie with Orange Zested Whipped Cream
• Great Grandma Francesca Cardile’s Cookies
• Triple-Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
• Ricotta Cookies
• Grandma’s Christmas Cookies
• Coconut Jelly

Recipe for Black Forest Popsicles

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