Ice cream is delicious but you’ve got more than one friend who has sworn off dairy. That means homemade ice cream is no longer on the menu for book club brunch. You need a slightly sweet treat that everyone can enjoy and that doesn’t require you to heat up the kitchen in the dog days of summer. It’s the perfect time for homemade tea popsicles!
Tea pops are so easy to make and you can try almost endless combinations of fun flavors. Unlike the store-bought popsicles from your childhood, homemade tea pops won’t have any crazy dyes and can make them very low in sugar.
Like homemade ice cream you will need to think ahead. Great tasting homemade tea popsicles require you to cold brew your tea which takes several hours. Cold brewing iced tea will avoid potential bitterness and allow a deep infusion of flavor. The good news is the time required is totally hands off.
All you need to do is pick a good quality loose leaf tea or two. Fruity herbals work best but you can do subtle green and black tea flavors too. You’ll put 2 tablespoons of your favorite loose-leaf tea into a tea sack, infuser or iced tea pitcher. Then place the tea sack or infuser in one quart of water or fill your iced tea pitcher with one quart of water. Let the tea steep in the refrigerator for eight hours or overnight.
After your tea has steeped it is time to add some sweetener and make the actual tea pops. (Do this in the morning so your homemade tea popsicles are ready for the hot afternoon.) Add 1-3 teaspoons of sweetener to your tea. I like raw sugar, coconut sugar or date sugar but you can experiment with stevia too.
Now get out your popsicle molds and get ready to have some fun!
At this point, I would love to give a big THANK YOU to Plum Deluxe Tea for sharing this whole process with me. This post follows a simple blueprint that you can also find on the Plum Deluxe blog (along with some more delicious tea popsicle recipes.)
Based on their blueprint, I have two tea popsicle recipes for you to try. My favorite of the two recipes (and the one we sample in this video) is the Carefree herbal blend with some raw sugar poured into mold with a few fresh blueberries added in for an additional pop of flavor.
The other recipe requires a little more prep. You’ll take one part cold brewed and sweetened Aloha blend black tea and mix with one-part canned coconut milk. Then add one-part pureed pineapple. Pour the mixture into your popsicle molds.
Whatever you choose to put into your popsicle mold, you’ll still need to freezer them. Put your tea pops into the freeze where they can sit undisturbed for at least five hours or until completely frozen. See why I said make your homemade tea popsicles first thing in the morning? Now you have a whole other way to enjoy afternoon tea on a hot summer day!
