For almost a year, my husband and I worked hard with our wonderful travel planner to plan an amazing trip to Disney World for the end of April. We had the perfect resort picked out, the perfect dining reservations made, and an amazing fireworks dessert party for our Little Miss’s birthday evening.
And then March came, the pandemic swept the country, and everything shut down.
I held out hope that things would get better and closely watched the number of cases and the news coming out about any possible reopenings.
But unfortunately, Disney World would not be reopened for April. Or May. Or June. Our trip has been moved to September… for now.
In the meantime, we are celebrating the reopening of the magic this month with some Dole Whip inspired popsicles!
Dole Whip is one of my absolute favorite treats at Disney World and Disneyland. Pineapple and ice cream? So incredibly refreshing when you are sweating bullets at the parks.
The official recipe is just frozen pineapple combined with vanilla ice cream. So simple and easy. So the question when trying to adapt this into a popsicle recipe came in how to replicate the taste of ice cream without using straight vanilla ice cream. Enter vanilla extract and heavy cream.
To get the perfect pineapple taste, I used both pineapple juice and pineapple chunks. This I used my knowledge from the orange cremesicle popsicles from last year. In those, the key was to balance the cream with the orange. We did this by using orange extract. In this recipe, the pineapple chunks took the spot of the extract.
Our recipe yields about 8 popsicles, depending on your molds and how full you fill them.
Supplies:
- Popsicle Molds – I like this Zoku Popsicle Mold best. Our popsicle mold is made by Koju, but sadly, they no longer make it. This one by Zoku is almost exactly the same. The sticks have a part that keeps the melting gooeyness from getting all over your hands and it has a stand for each individual popsicle.
- Blender or Food Processer
- Measuring Cups and Spoons
- Scraper
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- 1 Cup Frozen Pineapple Chunks
- 6 Oz Pineapple Juice
- 2 Tbsp Honey
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Directions:
1. Combine pineapple juice, heavy cream, pineapple chunks, honey, and vanilla extract into the blender.
2. Blend until smooth, scraping the sides a couple of times in between.
3. Have a small taste test to ensure it tastes similar to the famous Dole Whip. It should taste like creamy vanilla with pineapple.
4. Once mixture is smooth, slowly pour into popsicle molds, ensuring they are not too full.
5. Freeze for at least 4 hours, but overnight is even better. This is the hard part. It is really hard to explain to little ones that the popsicles aren’t ready right away. Sometimes a dance party is enough to distract them.
6. Once frozen and you are ready to devour, take the popsicles out of the freezer and run under warm water for a few seconds to loosen the molds. The popsicles should slide out easily without force. If they aren’t sliding out, run them under warm water a little longer and try again. Forcing will pull out the stick without the popsicle attached. It can also help to gently tap the sides of the mold to break any seal that may have formed.
7. Enjoy!
We can’t wait to enjoy the magic of Disney World again. But until that day comes, we will take what enjoyment we can from our Dole Whip Inspired popsicles.