National Creamsicle Day - Dairy Free Orange Cream Pops

Dairy-Free Orange Cream Pop

Well, today I should be posting about the incredibly yummy Daring Cooks Challenge for August.  However, I am waiting until I finish this restrictive 6-week diet my doctor has me on to make that incredibly delicious dish.  It will be so much better with onions and garlic, I am sure!

Today, I was fiddling around, looking on-line for some fun lunch ideas to surprise the boys with once school starts up in a couple of weeks.  I remembered a co-worker once telling me there is a National Food Day nearly every day of the year and I thought it would be fun to incorporate a few of those into the school lunches.  I googled National Food Days (I do love Internet search engines!) and discovered this American Food Holiday list stating today was National Creamsicle Day.

My boys thought I was teasing when I told them, and here is why...

Irony can be mighty fun sometimes!  Last week, my 13-year-old (Mutt), told me we should make Jell-o popsicles.  That afternoon, I began skimming through a book by Reader's Digest that I picked up at the library called, Homemade: How to Make Hundreds of Everyday Products Fast, Fresh, and More Naturally.  Guess what I found?  A recipe for Orange Cream Pops using orange gelatin.  (Ironic, right?)  I LOVE orange creamsicles and feared I would have to give them up forever.  Maybe not!  I picked up the ingredients last Thursday and Mutt and I finally made them last night.  However, we started the project so late, they would not be ready until today.  And then this afternoon, I discovered it was National Creamsicle Day.  My boys thought I was joking.  Little did they know... *grins*

I even found an article with a little bit Creamsicle history published August 14, 2012 on eatocracy.cnn.com.  Just CLICK HERE to read it - there is even a "grown-up" recipe included!

Of the four of us, only Monkey can have milk.  So, I adapted the recipe.  I did not want to break any copyright laws by sharing the recipe from the book, so I did another Internet search.  Taste of Home has the exact same recipe listed on their website.  You can find it by clicking HERE.  My recipe is modified to exclude dairy.

Dairy-Free Orange Cream Pops

Ingredients:

• 1 package (3 ounces) orange gelatin
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 cup (8 ounces) vanilla almond milk yogurt (or your favorite dairy-free vanilla yogurt)
• 1/2 cup almond milk (or your favorite dairy-free milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 10 paper cups or Popsicle molds (3 ounces each)
• 10 Popsicle sticks (if using cups)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve gelatin in hot water and stir until dissolved.  Allow it to cool to room temperature (we let it sit on the counter for about an hour.)
2. Whisk in almond milk, almond milk yogurt and vanilla until all ingredients are well combined and smooth.
3. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze until firm.  OR fill paper cups.  You can put foil or plastic wrap over the tops of the cups and stick the popsicle sticks through to hold the stick straight and freeze until firm.  OR you can freeze the cups for about 2 hours and then insert the popsicle sticks so they will stand straight.

We had a fair amount of the mixture remaining after filling our popsicle molds (which were a fun gift to the boys from their Aunt a few years ago.)  Luckily, we found 3 paper cups stashed away in the cupboard.  I did not have any popsicle sticks, but I found exactly 3 plastic spoons in the silverware drawer.

Dairy-Free Orange Cream Pop in a Cup

The boys declared these a definite "Make Again" treat!  (And I added the Reader's Digest Homemade book to my wish-list!)