Happy Canada Day! For my non-Canadian friends, July 1 is Canada’s Birthday. With local strawberries finally arriving at the market this week, I thought I’d be patriotic and make red, white and yellow ice pops. Yes, I know the Canadian flag is only red and white, but truth be told, sometimes I feel just a little bit anti-Canadian. Hence, the addition of yellow in my ice pops. Well, that and I just felt that the addition of golden ripe mangoes would be a great flavour complement to the snowy white coconut cream and the bright red strawberries.

We are spending Canada Day up at our cottage.  in honour of Canada Day, our local lake association puts on a big fireworks extravaganza every year. They set everything up on an island in the middle of our lake and everyone piles the kids into their boats and heads out to the middle of the lake to watch the splendour. Well, everyone that is, but me. If sitting in a (not so) gently rocking boat, in the middle of the lake, drinking a warm Molson Canadian Ale, and getting feasted on by mosquitoes is being a true Canadian, then I firmly stand on the side of anti-Canadian. I watch the fireworks show from my mosquito-free screened porch, drinking a chilled glass of Prosecco. Clearly I must have some Italian blood in me.

Local strawberries are a thing of beauty. Every summer I am reminded that strawberries are supposed to be red inside, not white, like those giant winter pretenders. The strawberry layer is simply berries, a bit of sugar and some lemon juice. They get blitzed in the blender and then strained.

The mango layer is pureed mango flesh mixed with some cooled simple syrup. Mango peeling can be tricky if you don’t know what you are doing. Here is a video I created last year, demonstrating how to do it safely.

The coconut layer is cream of coconut or sometimes labelled coconut cream. This is not to be confused with coconut milk.

It is best to have all your flavours in containers with spouts for mess free pouring.I was a little impatient when pouring my layers, so I did not get nice straight lines, but in the end, I am much happier with the tie-dyed look! I poured the first layer (strawberry), and froze them for about 20 minutes. When I added the second layer (coconut) they bled into the first layer. I froze them for a second time for about 25 minutes and then added the third layer. Then the sticks went in and they spent the night in the freezer.

I found these twin ice pop molds at Bed Bath and Beyond, and the single ones (pictured top) at The Dollar Store.

Click here to print recipe for Strawberry Mango Coconut Ice Pops.