Hi fraaaands! I’m shoulder-deep in piles of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap as I’m in the thick of moving. But I did have time to celebrate #PopsicleWeek with a huge mess of other bloggers!

Popsicle Week is the brainchild of the legendary Billy of Wit & Vinegar. Believe me, if you need a popsicle, look no further. There are tonsss of options to choose from! What better way to celebrate summer and get ready for the Fourth?!

So I decided to combine Popsicle Week and #WineWednesday (even though it’s a week early for my normal wine Wednesday schedule…and it’s Thursday. Yes I meant to post this yesterday, but see the moving comment above…) for the fabulously trendy popsicle in a wine glass! I’m sure you’ve seen this or this.

Basically, you put a fruit popsicle in a chilled glass of Prosecco or crisp white. By the end, you’ve got a fruit-spiked wine cocktail. Perfect for hot weather…or any weather really because you’re going to want to do this all the time!

*Bonus* you can use straws instead of popsicle sticks in the popsicles, and once the popsicles are melted, you’ve got yourself a straw for the cocktail!

Not familiar with Wine Wednesday? I pick a wine each month to feature that is under $10.00 and pair it with foods for a wonderful combination. Then I’ll give some of my reasoning for why the pairing works! Got it?

These popsicles use a simple syrup combined with the peaches and raspberries rather than just freezing fruit puree. And there’s a reason for that! Remember when we made that Blueberry Lemon Basil Sorbet? Well, let’s go back there. And talk sugar and ice crystals!

When temperature drops, water molecules move more slowly. If the temperature drops low enough, water molecules will be so stagnant that the water will turn to a solid. In other words, the water begins to freeze as temperature drops below the freezing point. The ice crystals, upon forming, will want to grow as long as liquid water surrounds the ice crystal. When ice crystals are really big, a coarse and extremely hard texture is created. If you’ve ever tried making an ice cream or a sorbet by freezing some cream or some sugared fruit juice, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hard as a rock.

So how do we keep the ice crystals from growing? Freezing foods quickly usually ensures a small enough crystal formation—encouraging crystal foundation faster than crystal growth. In this case, however, more needs to be done in order to have a scoop-able ice cream!

The main approach here is to get in between the water molecules and prevent them from interacting with each other. This keeps the growth rate low. There are three ingredients that can easily accomplish this. (For us, we are really only interested in one—sugar! If you want to read more about the other two, air and fat, head on over here!)

Sugar: sugar binds water and thus keeps it from interacting with other nearby water. Too much sugar, however, and the ice formation is actually impeded. This can cause incomplete freezing or even an ice cream or sorbet that melts extremely quickly. An optimum sugar amount that won’t cause adverse freezing effects alone is not enough to prevent large crystal growth, so the other two ingredients need to be employed.

Simple syrup = a winning ingredient for your popsicles.

Now let’s talk wine. I picked this Cuvee Lion from France which is a white blend priced at $7.99. It’s a wonderfully crisp wine with floral and tropical fruit notes and a small hint of honey. It pairs wonderfully with the slowly-melting raspberry and peach from the popsicle. The peach plays up the tropical note, while the raspberry adds a deeper, sweeter, jammy sweet note. So good! I would recommend you use only dry, crisp whites of sparkling wines for best results with these popsicles if you can’t find the Cuvee Lion!

Don’t forget to check out all the other popsicles from Popsicle Week! And if these aren’t a part of your Summer celebrations, I might just judge you a little bit…

Peach Raspberry Popsicles

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 8

½ cup water

½ cup sugar

1 cup raspberries, rinsed

2 cups peeled, chopped peaches (about 3-4 depending on the size, they should not be rrrripe)

1. Combine sugar and water in a smallish saucepan and heat over medium until the mixture simmers. Stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves.
2. Pour a third of the syrup, about ¼ cup, over the raspberries in a heat-safe bowl/container.
3. Add the peach chunks to the saucepan and put back over heat. Cook for about 2-3 minutes until they soften. This cooking time will depend on the ripeness of your peaches.
4. Once cooked, remove from the heat and let cool in the syrup. Let the raspberries cool in the syrup as well. You can speed this along by placing in the fridge.
5. Using either an immersion blender or blender, blend first the peaches then the raspberries until pureed.
6. Pour, as desired into your popsicle molds. I did a third of the peach followed by a third of the raspberries and repeat until done. You may have a tiny bit of peach leftover depending on the mold sizes. If you want to muddle the sections together a little bit, use a toothpick to scrape along the sides of the molds a bit. **Note: you can use champagne flutes instead of popsicle molds if you don’t have.
7. Stick popsicle sticks or straws into each mold. Freeze the molds overnight until hard. Pop out and (optional) dip in your glass of wine. Enjoy! If you’re having trouble getting the popsicles out, run under warm water for a few seconds and then try again.