Whole Fruit Frozen Yogurt Bites

If you shop in a supermarket, you know there's an utterly dizzying selection of flavored yogurts out there. You've seen the tubes and pouches, the fruit-on-the-bottoms, and the rainbow cups topped with helmets of chocolate and sugary granola. These products are heavily-marketed (Probiotics! Fruit! Low Fat!) and designed to make us feel like good eaters and good parents, if only we buy them. They are rosy, cozy, Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light yogurts. Are you suspicious yet? You should be.

You have to stoop to pick up the good stuff, because it's usually on the bottom shelf, only the lid visible. Whole, and plain. Tart, rich, and creamy with the fat that belongs in it. A milk-white, empty canvas. Because yogurt shines when YOU doll it up a little, in your own kitchen, with simple, fresh ingredients.

On a hot day, these treats hit all the right notes: frosty, fun, and colorful, fruity and sweet-tart. They start to lose their shape out of the freezer fairly quickly, so I like to grab a few at a time and put them into a little dish for Darwin. The worst-case scenario is your shapes melt, and you have to eat a thick swirl of real-food soft serve. Torture!

If you have any leftover mixture, pour it into a glass and stick a straw in it. Do.

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Whole Fruit Frozen Yogurt Bites

1 ripe banana (frozen is OK)
1 cup whole plain yogurt
1/2 cup frozen fruit (blueberries, raspberries, cherries, mango, etc)
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1-2Tbls honey, optional for babies over one year

Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor, and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into candy molds or make dollops on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet. Freeze and enjoy.

Here is a link to the molds that made the yogurt bites pictured. A word of caution: it is a very, very tiny mold, so you don't get much yogurt in these shapes without making several batches, or owning several molds.