Rainbow Whole-Fruit Popsicles (Ice Pops) - 84th&3rd (2024)

Sitting on the concrete floor of my mother’s friend’s flowershop I sorted and searched through the little plastic pieces for the right colour. Pop, pop, pop the little pegs broke through black paper, twinkling as they released the light.

I followed the Lite Brite patterns until I used them all up and started making up my own designs — swirls and zig-zags and 5-year-old interpretations of trees — from the little points of colour.

And then a question, asked casually and without pressure, that would open a whole other world.

“Oh J”, called from across the room, “do you know about the colour wheel?”

Within moments of those six coloured pegs being arranged in a circle on the back-lit board my young life changed.

Red and yellow made orange, yellow and blue made green, blue and red made purple and then all again.

It was at once completely logical, yet entirely magical, and from that point on everything existed as a rainbow (or if it didn’t I tried my hardest to make it so).

A pastel rainbow painted by hand stretching from the decorative princess window over my bed across the wall to the doorway, Crayons and pencils re-orgainsed in their packs into perfect rainbows. Later, clothes on shelves and hanging bars organised first by item then by colour (starting with red and ending with purple before the pinks, whites, greys, browns and blacks filed in).

Rainbow anything and everything because it was pretty and made me happy.

Now of course I also adore rainbow food however most of it is pretty scary. I brainstorm all the time about how I could make rainbow cakes and pancakes and bread using natural colours, last year I even managed to make a rainbow of Natural Food-Based Easter Egg Dyes.

So when popsicles came up as a SABH theme, tackling the rainbow was a given.

Sydney is seriously lacking in decent popsicle moulds and so off I went to search the internets. These very traditional ones are on their way now and are bound to produce a few more creations over the rest of the summer, but it was these plastic tube ice pops that really got me thinking.

Both mad science and the creative distraction gene feature heavily around here, so it should be no surprise that out came the heat sealer (don’t ask why I have a heat sealer, just accept it and move on, it’s safer for everyone that way) and the zip top bags, and before I knew it there were a small army of long plastic tubes marching across the benchtop.

As for the fillings, while they aren’t quite a pure rainbow — blue turned a lovely deep lavender (Blueberry Coconut); white/pale pink ended up orangey-tan (White Nectarine & Lychee) and moved way up the rainbow; the intended orange pop turned out quite yellow (Mango & Orange) bridging the gap between red and green; and black was closer to a dark red than a dark purple (Spiced Plum & Black Cherry) — they certainly are lovely none the less.

I would be perfectly happy with any of these as large popsicles, straight-up fruit or with a boozy adults-only twist, but there is something terribly fun about the little tubes, wouldn’t you agree?

Oh, just in case you are wondering, my closet is still colour coordinated in rainbow order, as are all the spools of thread in my sewing box. Hey, a bit of OCD never hurt anyone — especially when it makes everything pretty.

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A quick resource list

• Disposable plastic tubes(in US)
• Disposable plastic tubes (in AU)
• Reusable, classic popsicle moulds
• Reusable, silicone tube moulds(commenter recommendation, thanks Elizabeth!)
• Heat sealer(if you want to make your own with zip-top bags…)

Once again it’s time for Sweet Adventures Blog Hop and our guest hostess is the dessert queen Swah from Love Swah with her Popsicle Party theme. Thanks for hosting!

SABH is a monthly blog hop brought to you by and guest hostesses.

Make sure to check out all the other creations that have been linked-up below.

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