Welcome to our Summer Series: Icy Treats Edition, Part 1!

Apparently, it’s National Ice Cream Month! So, happy National Ice Cream Month to you and yours. Had you asked us, we would have assumed that every month is National Ice Cream Month because we honor it all year long (National Ice Cream Year, anyone?), but we’re happy to have an extra excuse to celebrate some of our favorite frozen desserts and ditch other foods in favor of this patriotic duty. “What do you mean why are we eating ice cream for dinner? IT’S NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH, you traitor!” is a thing we plan to yell a lot.

First up: We’ve upgraded a childhood classic from summer crush to full-blown LOVE and added the extra perk of whisky-flavored grown-up status. The Fudgsicle just got darker, fruitier, and a little bit of a buzz. And the recipe couldn’t be easier.

Our chocolate pop is richer and, though we’ll never stop wanting to bolt towards the tune if a truck is within earshot, way more delicious than anything you’ll get from a Good Humor truck (you’ll have to hum the song to yourself with these, though—sorry). They have more chocolate—way more chocolate, enough chocolate to satisfy even the chocolate daydreams of those who’ve considered the merits of a chocolate IV— than your average popsicle. But unlike a lot of chocolate desserts, these are summer perfect.

Yes, they are icy and cooling and tasty, but the raspberries and bourbon cut through the richness and give the pops more dimension than just chocolate. Not that there’s a single thing wrong with Just Chocolate, but some texture, some tanginess, and some bourbon also sound pretty great, especially if you add a deck chair, a patch of grass in the sun, and pretending you’re on summer break (if only for as long as it takes you to eat this pop).

We chose to use extra dark chocolate because that’s what we love, but also because it keeps these pops from being too sweet—the slight bitterness from the extra cocoa plays perfectly against the other flavors we have going on. You’ll notice, too, that we added some cinnamon to the pops. True cinnamon, as opposed to cassia cinnamon, adds some warmth and interest, wrapping up all the other ingredients and tying everything together beautifully.

Stay tuned for the next installments of this series, and in the meantime, let us know what you think of these!

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Chocolate Raspberry Bourbon Pops
Makes six 6-ounce pops

Notes: We used “true cinnamon,” which has a different flavor than the spicier cassia cinnamon. We use each cinnamon for different things but here, think true cinnamon works especially well with the other ingredients.

You’ll need:
– Ice pop molds (ours are 6 ounces)

Ingredients:
– 6 ounces raspberries
– 1 tbs sugar
– 1 cup dark chocolate chips (we used 55% cocoa)
– 1 cup milk (we used 2%—it’s what we had on hand)
– 1 tsp true cinnamon
– 1 1/2 oz bourbon

* In a 1-quart bowl, mash raspberries with sugar.

* Melt the chocolate chips with the cinnamon and milk over low heat, stirring until smooth. Let cool until lukewarm. Don’t let it too cool or it may start to firm up.

* Stir raspberry and chocolate mixtures together. Mix in the bourbon.

* Fill your ice pop molds with the mixture.

* Place in freezer for 4-5 hours or until frozen through.

* To unmold the pops, run the mold under cold or tepid water to make the pop easier to remove.

© 2015 Lee and Lou Cook. All rights reserved