Watermelon Ice Lollies Great for Toddlers

If I can encourage you to do one thing this summer, which is setting out to be a scorcher, is buy an ice lolly mould.  Ice lollies are so expensive to buy and often full of sugar, artificial food colourings and other stuff which isn't all that great for kids.

Much better is to make your own lollies out of fruit or fruit juice with a little added sugar if needed.  Even if you do add something to make it sweeter, it's still far more natural, lower in added sugar and can count towards their 5 a day!  In fact, one of these ice lollies contains 60g of fruit and only around half a teaspoon of added sugar.

So here is my latest ice lolly recipe.  My 3 year old said "I like pink lollies best" when he had one of these and was upset when I wouldn't give him one at 6:30pm because it was bath time!

Low Sugar Watermelon Ice Lollies - made about 5 but depends on the size of your moulds

Ingredients

300g, 11oz Watermelon, preferably the seedless kind or the type with only soft seeds or see method
1 tbsp Caster sugar (may need slightly less, depending on how sweet your melon is)

Method

If you have a watermelon with seeds, you may find the majority of them are in a single layer.  To save hassle, cut this layer out, otherwise you have a little bit of a job picking out the black seeds.  If the seeds are soft and whiteish then just leave them in.

Cut up the flesh into small pieces and put into a blender.  You need 300g / 11oz of cut up fruit.  Add the sugar and blend.  You might need to shake it a bit and poke it down to get it going but once it starts, the watermelon will blend really easily.  Don't be tempted to add water.

Once you have a smoothish slush, pour into the moulds and leave to freeze overnight.

Help to remove from the moulds by running the outside of the mould under warm water and easing out the lolly.