We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The temperature's rising,
It isn't surprising,
-- Irving Berlin
And it is Hot here! I get up at dawn and go to the garden and have to be done by 9 AM because it is too hot to be out there longer, I'll get dehydrated. If it rains the herbs pop and get huge fast. If it does not, then they go dormant and wait for rain. I have to go to the garden to keep up on the weeds. Hot and humid, makes them pop too!
This week I have taken to making iced teas and cooling them with ice cubes made from the same tea so it does not get diluted. I also made several batches of frozen pops. I originally shared this recipe back in 2011 as a How to, but I thought since I was making them this week, I would expand on the instructions.
How to make Lemon Balm Popsicles
You need fresh lemon balm, of which I have more than my fair share this year.
Place the cut lemon balm in a bowl. You need about 2 cups. You can take it off the stems, but that is not necessary if you can estimate the two cups. Pour 4 cups of boiling water over the lemon balm and allow to steep for 20 minutes.
The resulting liquid will be a strong lemon balm tea that has a brownish color.
Strain out the leaves.
Add a sweetener. Honey will give them a unique taste. Sugar will make them more like popsicles of childhood. Add 1 to 3 tsp of sweetener per cup of steeped tea. I had 3 3/4 cups of liquid so I added 2 1/2 Tablespoons of honey. I had a slightly crystalized lavender honey that I scraped out of the bottom of a jar. Since the tea liquid was hot it easily dissolved the crystalized sugar.
The liquid was allowed to cool a bit more while I prepped the molds. I have several different ones to try. These old molds of plastic and aluminum were discovered while cleaning the cupboards during covid. I used wood skewers from Dollar tree for sticks and placed them in a baking sheet, ladling in the sweetened liquid.
In addition to the old style popsicle molds, I also have these zip seal bags called Zipczicles. You can get them from zipzicles.com, but last time I checked they were out of stock, so you might try Amazon.
Once all the molds are filled, just pop them into the freezer and 4 hours later you have great naturally sweetened and refreshing lemon balm popsicles! Since we are having our third or fourth heat wave these are perfect!
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