Ice-Cream and Giggles

Hi guys! Sorry I haven't posted for a few days: towards the end of semester I got so busy that I was unable to come up with new recipes. But after my last exam on Thursday I saw an ad for watermelonade. The idea behind watermelonade is a watermelon flavoured lemonade. Radical, I know. My life was changed, but I figured the watermelonade advertised would be full of artificial flavours and sugar. So I decided to make one from real fruit and refined sugar free! And it's pretty damn delicious. I think it might be my new favourite summertime drink!

Serves 2, approx. 20 minutes to make then 1-2 hours chilling time

1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 cups watermelon
1/4 cup lemon juice (approx. 1 large lemon)

1. In a small saucepan combine water and maple syrup on medium heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, set aside.
2. In a blender, blend your 2 cups watermelon. I always find that pressing the watermelon down in the blender releases the juice and helps it blend more easily.
3. Pour your watermelon juice in a sieve, removing any pulp and seeds.
4. Juice your lemon juice.
5. Combine all ingredients in a jug and whisk. You can either serve immediately or chill!

After the lemon tree in my backyard produced a bucket worth of lemons, I figured I would put them to good use by making a fresh lemon sorbet.

Recipe from here

You will need:

Juice of 6 or so lemons (1 cup)
2 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest

1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water on low heat until all sugar is dissolved. Place in fridge.
2. Meanwhile, juice your lemon, and mix in the zest.
3. When the sugar water is cool, mix in the lemon juice. Pour into a container, cover with glad wrap, place in freezer and whisk every 30 minutes until ready.

You will need:

For cheesecake part:

1 x 400 ml coconut cream
250 gram/ 1 cup of macadamia nuts
Juice of one lemon (or more)
1/4 cup of melted coconut oil
4 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract

For "base"
6 tbsp cashews
1 date (soaked and pitted)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp coconut oil


1. Mix all of the ingredients for the cheesecake part in a food processor until combined and pour into a metal tray. Cover in glad wrap and place in freezer. Whisk every 30 minutes until ready.
2. For the "base": place the ingredients in a food processor until combined.
3. When ice-cream is ready: get the "base" part and arrange in lines across ice-cream. Place in freezer for 30 more minutes.
4. When serving, scoop the ice-cream with the "base", so that you get an ice-cream with occasional stripes of the cheesecake base.

Today I thought I would post something a little different today: my other love, namely popsicles. They are super easy to make: all you have to do is whip the ingredients, pour into moulds, place in your freezer and you're done. As simple as that. Today I will be doing simple homemade raspberry lemonade popsicles. P.S. You don't necessarily have to make this into popsicles: it tastes just fine as a normal drink!

You will need:
Juice of 1 - 2 lemons
1/4 of raspberries (plus more for decoration if desired)
3/4 cup of water
1 tbsp to 2 tbsp of maple syrup

Utensils:
A small sieve
A lemon juicer
A cup
Popsicle moulds

I used small popsicle moulds that made 4 mini popsicles. The amount made in this recipe will probably give you 2 large popsicles. Moreover, many of the ingredient amounts are variable: it really depends on what you want the popsicle to taste like e.g. if you like lemons a lot you might add more juice, and if you don't you might add less lemon juice and more maple syrup. Kapeesh?

1. Pour the water into a cup. Juice your lemon/s and add juice to water, then add maple syrup and stir. Check for taste: add more lemon juice if needed, or more maple syrup if needed.
2. Heat up your raspberries in the microwave so they are warm, juicy and squishy.
3. Place the sieve over the cup with lemonade. Pour in the raspberries to the sieve. Using a small spoon, squish the raspberries to get the juice out. Once most of the juice is in the lemonade, and mostly seeds remain in sieve: remove sieve and stir your mixture.
 If it tastes okay, pour into moulds. There is also the option to add some raspberries to the popsicles to make them super pretty!
4. Place in your freezer until frozen.