Pure Hunger

It feels like summer just got here and not it’s on it’s way out. We still have plenty of warm, short and flip flop wearing days ahead and I wanted to celebrate this last few weeks of summer by making my own popsicles. The idea to make my own came during an intolerable heat wave that was not helped by my current natural body heat that is at least ten degrees warmer than any person in any given room. I went to five different stores to find popsicle molds and came back empty handed. I then turned to making ice cream and this went over very well to help sooth my hot skin. I was still left disappointed that I had not ventured into the home made popsicle foray when my husband found me some great molds and also happened to have some left over root beer from his keg.

Ingredients

2 cups root beer, flat
1 cup vanilla ice cream

Yes, you heard me right. Keg. My husband has been enjoying Virgils root beer from a keg lately and the very last bit was too flat to really drink but was perfect for making popsicles. In order to make popsicles with carbonated soda you have to let as much carbonation leave as possible. Otherwise, as the soda freezes it spills over the molds or explodes all over the freezer. This recipe is especially important to incorporate less carbonation as you add ice cream to the soda, which just increases the fizz.

Place root beer in freezer for about 10 min before pouring in molds to even further decrease carbonation. Fill 1/3 of mold with root beer. Add one scoop ice cream and fill remainder of mold with root beer. Leave a little space on the very top in case soda fizzes while freezing. Place top on mold. Continue to fill all molds in this manner until complete.

Place filled molds in freezer for at least 6 hours. Carefully remove mold from bottom and enjoy! Feel free to make your mold go “zoom” if it is in the shape of a rocket ship.