Summer is coming which means it’s time to start thinking about healthy summer snacks. You can use fresh oranges and citrus fruit to create healthy treats everyone will love. No one wants to spend a lot of time cooking or baking when the weather is great. But with lots of picnics, barbecues and summer parties coming up you will need to be making some cool summer desserts. You also will need healthy but delicious and cool treats for the kids when they are out of school. Here are some easy to make summer treats that are made with real Florida oranges so you know they are healthy as well as tasty.
Orange popsicles – Kids love popsicles in the summer but popsicles have a lot of sugar. You can make natural popsicles by squeezing fresh orange juice into plastic popsicle molds and freezing them. You can also mix orange juice with other types of fruit juice to create different flavors. If you don’t have popsicle molds you can also use ice cube trays. Just pour the fresh orange juice into the ice cube tray, cover the top with plastic wrap, stick a popsicle stick or toothpick into each cube and then freeze. These frozen treats are fantastic for birthday parties.
Citrus sorbet – sorbet is perfect anytime of the day. A light orange sorbet is a cooling treat on a hot summer night. It also is fantastic for dinner parties. If you want to keep punch or drinks cool at summer parties you can fill a punch bowl with orange sorbet which will slowly melt into the punch adding a refreshing hit of citrus. To make sorbet you can use an ice cream maker. You can also make it by hand by boiling sugar and water together to get a simple syrup. Add plenty of fresh orange or even grapefruit juice and then refrigerate in a very cold refrigerator until it has the consistency of slush. If you want to freeze it add a touch of alcohol like vodka to the mixture to keep it from becoming a solid block of orange ice.
Candied orange peel – Even though most people think of candied orange peel as a Christmas food you can make candied orange peel or candied grapefruit peel as a summer dessert as well. The light and crisp taste of the candied fruit peel is a nice change from heavy chocolate desserts.