Ingredients
Scale
- 1 peach, seeded and cut into large chunks
- 1 cup Trader Joe’s Dixie Peach juice (or substitute a peach nectar)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups water
- 2 black tea bags (I used Stash English Breakfast)
- 1/2 cup of “tea infused” simple syrup (recipe follows)
Tea Infused Simple Syrup
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 black tea bag
Instructions
- Freeze your empty popsicle molds to make sure they’re nice and cold before you start.
- Make “tea infused” simple syrup: bring 1 cup water and 1 cup sugar to boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Once water comes to boil, remove from heat. Add 1 tea bag to water and let steep for 5 minutes. Remove tea bag and let tea-flavored syrup cool to room temperature. Once syrup is at room temperature, transfer to a small bowl or storage container and cool in refrigerator, covered.
- In the meantime, make the tea. Bring 2 cups water to a boil. Remove from heat and add 2 tea bags and steep for 15 minutes. Remove tea bags and let tea cool to room temperature. Once tea is room temperature, cover and chill in refrigerator.
- When your tea and syrup are completely chilled take them out of the fridge. Mix in 1/2 cup of “Tea Infused” Simple Syrup into your chilled tea and stir to combine (You’ll have 1/2 cup left over syrup to make another batch of popsicles if you wish). Set aside leftover “Tea Infused Simple Syrup”. Taste a little bit of your iced tea mixture. At this point, it should taste very sweet (maybe too sweet). If you want to add more syrup you can. The sweeter the better because when the popsicles are frozen, the sweet flavor mellows out quite a bit. You want to overdo it. Put back the iced tea mixture back in fridge until ready to use.
- In a food processor or blender, combine chunks of peach, peach nectar, and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Blend and/or pulverize.
- Pour a little bit of the peach mixture into popsicle molds. Your layers can be as thin or thick as you want. Feeling lazy? You can do half and half. The thicker the layer, the longer it will need to “set” before pouring a new layer on. I did about an inch deep.
- Carefully put molds into freezer and chill for about 1 hour. (Possibly longer if your layers are extra thick.)
- Test to make sure your first layer is somewhat frozen. Pour some of your sweetened tea into the molds and let that layer freeze for another hour. (you’ll want to put your popsicle sticks in at this point before it gets too hard to insert them).
- Repeat with layers until finished. Always leave at least 1/2 inch of room at the top of your molds for expansion.
- Note: I found it easier to cover the molds with tinfoil and freeze for about an hour and then poke the popsicle sticks through the tinfoil because the pops have partially frozen and it keeps the wooden stick in place.
- When you’re finished adding the last layer, freeze completely for at least a total of 4 hours or overnight.
- To remove popsicles, you can run some warm water over the outside of the molds or just let them sit out for about 3-4 minutes and they should slide right out. Enjoy!
Notes
You can also use the sweetened tea mixture to make these Southern Sweet Tea Popsicles by not adding any of the peach mixture.
More great recipes at www.thekitchensnob.com
