New gadgets are fun. I was leafing through (more like studying) the latest issue of Donna Hay magazine and saw this Zoku Quick Pop Maker that makes popsicles in less than 10 minutes. It’s been out for awhile and reviewed in a bunch of places — here’s theKitchn’s take — but I’d just missed it somehow. Sure, you could just use some Dixie cups and popsicle sticks, but oooh, a new gadget! Ten minutes, not two hours! And yeah, it’s $50, but oooh, new gadget!



Half the fun was deciding what flavors to make. Nutella fudgesicle was the obvious one. I thought about pomegranate, pineapple/coconut milk, horchata and bought ingredients for all three. In the end, horchata was the other flavor. I figured we could just drink what we didn’t use for the popsicles.

Between the two, Nutella fudgesicle was the clear winner. Creamy, Nutella-y and not overly sweet. This is so crazy simple, it’s not even cooking. It’s mixing. It was Clotilde’s Super Simple Nutella ice cream recipe on Chocolate & Zucchini, that gave me the a-ha moment on the base. In her recipe, Clotilde mixes evaporated milk and Nutella — that’s it. So I said, ok, I can use less actual Nutella, and I’ll kick up the chocolate hazelnut flavor with Pacific hazelnut chocolate milk. The hazelnut chocolate milk is non-dairy, but Nutella itself has milk in it – so these popsicles aren’t strictly dairy-free.

I didn’t try any advanced popsicle making w/ multiple layers this time out. I’m thinking I’ll have to look at the Zoku toolkit and decide how involved I really want to get, but you gotta try orange creamsicle, right?! The list of flavors is just going to get longer and longer.