Guilt-Free Pumpkin Pie Pops

Our last post in our themed series was a dorm food recipe, so this time we're aiming for something that will pass for an after school snack, for those in the audience contending with the younger stomachs. As a number of various places have pointed out, it's remarkably hard nowadays to find a  suitable "snack" for children that isn't loaded to the brim with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, food coloring, or other miscellaneous bits that we're told are bad for us. Me? Well, I'm on the train of "if it doesn't taste good, I'm not eating it." Turns out it took a bit of work to find something that would satisfy both of those points and still qualify as something snackable.

After much research, it turns out that pumpkins are roughly equivalent nutrition-wise to carrots. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have discovered this, but you're telling me that I spent my entire childhood with people attempting to feed me carrots, which I still can't stand to this day, when they could have just as easily handed me something pumpkin based and I'd be begging for more? Everyone out there with a picky eater, be them 2 or 20, take note.

Now, I will admit, pumpkin items do have a bit of a stigma attached to them, mostly on the grounds of being inanely fattening. Turns out you can capture all of the wonderful delightful flavor of pumpkin goodness without having to revert to wearing sweatpants for a week.

Ingredients:

• 1 Can Pumpkin
  • Check the ingredients to make sure that it's just pumpkin squish. Some times it's hard to tell the difference otherwise between pumpkin squish and canned pie filling.
• 4c Low Fat Vanilla Yogurt
  • I used the store-branded regular stuff, but I'm pretty sure that you could use Greek yogurt instead
• 3tbsp Cinnamon
  • This is really a to-taste thing. I was using cheap cinnamon that was probably a little bit older than it should have been, so adjust accordingly.

Equipment:

• Popsicle-Making Equipment
  • I wound up using the Zoku Classic Pop Maker that I found at Michaels over the summer, but the old plastic-cups-and-popsicle-sticks route works just as well.
• Freezer
• Blender
• Rubber Spatula

The actual active part of this recipe is remarkably easy. The waiting for the popsicles to actually harden up... well... that's the more difficult part. Put all of the ingredients into the blender, and blend until well mixed. I would say until smooth, but everything going in to this is smooth to begin with. You'll likely have to stop every so often and scrape the sides of the blender, because pumpkin kind of likes to stick. 

Thanks Mom for the powerful blender!

In all honesty, you can totally stop at this point and just eat the yogurt blend, with or without some granola. It's rich enough to satisfy the "it's been a long day, I need junk food and Netflix" urge, just for the record. But if you've got the patience to let it freeze, just distribute the yogurt blend into whatever you're freezing it it, pop it into the ice box, and wait.

Popsicle making has come a long way since the early 90s

How did yours turn out? Be sure to let me know in the comments! For all the latest recipes and updates, be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.