Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Pops

Summer makes me lazy. Makes me so lazy that I’d much rather prefer eating an ice pop than scooping ice cream into a bowl. But summer was made for being lazy, right? Lazy pseudo naps in the hammock, lazy nights relaxing on the porch catching random breezes. No loading dirty bowls into the dish washer. Just fling the pop stick into the garbage. Lazy. Embrace it. You can totally blame it on me…

Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Pops

recipe: adapted from Southern Living

yield: 8-12 ice pops depending on size of molds

Blueberry Swirl

1 pint fresh, clean blueberries

3/4 Cup sugar

2 tsp. lemon zest

1 tsp. lemon juice

In a small sauce pan bring contents to boil and then turn down to simmer until mixture thickens. Let cool completely then place in refrigerator to chill until needed.

Cheesecake Ice Cream Base

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1 1/2 Cups half and half

1/2 Cup buttermilk

3/4 Cup sugar

pinch of kosher salt

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla bean paste

1. Process ingredients in a blender until smooth; about 1 minute. Pour into a freezable container and place in the freezer. Freeze for one hour, stirring every 20 minutes.

2. Stir 3/4 cup blueberry swirl into the ice cream base and continue to freeze again for another 20 minutes; saving the rest of the blueberry swirl to layer ice pops with.

3. Layer blueberry ice cream into ice pops molds and freeze about 20 minutes. Spoon a thin layer of blueberry swirl, then freeze for 10 minutes. Spoon another layer of ice cream over swirl- freeze for 20 minutes, and continue once more with swirl and freeze as indicated before topping off with ice cream. After 15 minutes insert popsicle sticks into ice pops and continue to freeze until firm.

p.s. If you don’t want to layer the ice pops with a stripe- you can mix in all of the swirl into the base and spoon the mixture into the molds-wait about an hour until firm enough to insert the pop sticks.

You may also use the base recipe and process in your ice cream maker and once done churning, layer the base with the blueberry swirl in a square shaped ice cream container.