Strawberries and Cream Ice Lollies

An organised blogger would have had this recipe ready for the Wimbledon final, cos what screams Wimbledon more than strawberries and cream, but that's not what you're here for is it? You're here for the Dopey vegan and in my usual unorganised dopey fashion this recipe is a few days late. Ahh well, what can you do?

These lollies were made using strawberries picked from my strawberry plants! Yes they were the first crop of the year from my garden and I'm incredibly proud. I will be writing a long post on just why I love gardening so much, and how I really got into it this year. But for now marvel at the beauty of my strawberry plant and my baby strawbs. I love how much sweeter than are than shop brought strawberries, and their variation in colour and size. Of course you can use store brought strawberries if you don't have a strawberry plant!

As well as pottering about in my garden I've been really busy with the blog recently. I've been offered quite a few opportunities to work with brands and attend some events. It's really exciting getting to do stuff like this, I genuinely couldn't have envisioned all of this when I started. I was in such a bad place when I started this, I could barely leave the house on my own, and the idea of having to meet new people and "network" was just an impossibility. Now I still get really anxious, but I am managing to consistently produce work here, work with brands, and go to events and actually network! Last week I shared on instagram, that I have a 10% discount code for Organic Basics, but I'll share it here too for all my loyal blog followers. It's VEGOB . I'm also going to be at the Ethical Brand Directory's second birthday this Thursday and I would love to network with you, if you're going let yourself be known! Who is this girl? I don't know, but I like her. I like how motivated I feel at the moment, how much I want to create, and how much I genuinely believe I can.

Back to the lollies. They are the perfect balance of sweet strawberries and smooth cream. They are also really really simple to make, and only need 5 ingredients. I added little chunks of fresh strawberries, but if you like a super smooth lolly just leave them out. I used both coconut cream and alpro soya single cream, because I wanted the thickness and fat of the coconut cream, but I didn't want it to taste coconutty. The lollies are super refreshing, and taste just like those strawberry and cream sweets (the pink and white swirly ones, I can't remember what they are called), basically they are a taste of Summer.

Makes around 5 lollies

Ingredients

250g Strawberries

1/4 cup of water

2 teaspoons agave syrup

150ml aplro soya cream

2 tablespoon coconut cream

1/2 teapoon vanilla essence

Method

1) Place the strawberries into a saucepan along with the water and the agave, bring to the boil, and then simmer on a low heat for around 5 mins, until the strawberries are soft and falling apart.

2) Blend the strawberries and water mixture, either with an immersion blender or in a blender.

3) In a jug mix together the coconut cream, alpro soya cream and vanilla essence. Pour the jug of cream into the saucepan and mix well.

4) Pour the strawberries and cream mixture back into the jug and allow it to cool before pouring into ice lolly moulds. Cut the remaining strawberries into small chunks and distribute through out the ice lolly mould as you pour.

5) Place the lollies into the freezer and leave to freeze, this will take at least 4 hours.

6) Remove from the moulds and enjoy on a hot day!