Frozen Yogurt Fruit Bites

An easy, healthy, and delicious recipe to keep you cool and healthy this summer.

There is nothing like a icy little snack in the middle of the afternoon on a scorching hot summer day or fresh juicy summer fruit. Popsicles and ice cream are the classic cold summer snack of the back yard BBQ and afternoon pool swim, but they're usually filled with sugar, fat, preservatives, and food coloring. I'll admit it, I'm an ice cream fanatic, but I'm also a sucker for those berries and peaches of summer. I wanted to find a way to combine the creamy aspect of ice cream and frozen yogurt, but stick to the pure sugar and flavor of fruit.  A friend suggested "frozen yogurt fruit bites", and I immediately set out on working up an Instructable. I'm hooked, I'm pretty sure you will be too. 

Materials:

• Cookie Sheet
• Parchment or Wax Paper
• 2 Cups of Fresh Fruit 
• 1-2 Cups of Your Preferred Yogurt
• Spoon
• Mixing Bowl
• Strainer
• Freezer

First things first, cleaning the fruit. Wash all of your fruit by running cold water over them in a strainer. 

Remove any stems, bruises, or other parts of the fruit that you do not want to eat. 

Choose your favorite yogurt, but a helpful tip, the thicker yogurts will freeze around the fruit better rather than slip off in the freezing process.

Pour or spoon 1 cup of yogurt into your mixing bowl.

You can always add more yogurt later depending on how many frozen yogurt fruit snacks you want to make. This would also be a good time to mix in some peanut butter or honey if you'd like to have a variation to your fruit bites. I prefer mine plain but to each their own!

Add your fruit to your bowl with yogurt. Fold the fruit in slowly with a spoon until the fruit is coated in yogurt. 

I like to work in batches with my fruit for this step to make sure that all of the fruit gets covered evenly. 

Cover your cookie sheet with either wax or parchment paper.

Spoon each fruit individually on to your prepared cookie sheet. Ideally they will all be separate so that they freeze separately. 

If you've found that you'd like more yogurt on your fruit, you can spoon some extra on top of the fruit once they are on the sheet. I've also found that I like the yogurt dollop base, but if you'd like to avoid it, try dipping the fruit into the yogurt with a toothpick. Slide the yogurt covered fruit off of the toothpick.

Place your cookie sheet of fruit in the freezer for up to an hour or until yogurt is frozen around your fruit.  

If you'd like your yogurt coating to be thicker, spoon another dollop of yogurt on to your fruit after they've been in the freezer for at least 25 minutes. This will create a secondary layer of creamy yogurt goodness. 

Once frozen, you can remove your fruit from the freezer. Break your yogurt covered fruit off of the wax/parchment paper. 

If you aren't going to eat your tasty snacks for awhile, place them in a tupperware and put them back in the freezer until you're ready to eat them. You could also always plop a couple frozen fruit bites in your smoothie as well!

If you aren't storing them, ENJOY!

They'll eventually melt, and the yogurt will take on it's original liquid form, so eat up! And while you're doing so, smile a little on the inside--you're eating a healthy (creamy, naturally sugary, delicious) snack, and your tastebuds are STOKED.