Raspberry Popsicles

Time between my blog posts keeps getting longer. I haven't stopped making sweets, but all my words have somehow slipped away, and so this little blog has gotten a little neglected in the last few months. When I first started blogging almost eight months ago things were so different. I was working on my phD and sitting in front of a computer several days a week. Now I am baking full time and rarely have time to read all the posts from people I follow with Google Reader. For the first few months the bakery was open, it only stimulated my desire to make new things. While it is exciting to work for people who want me to create organic and fair trade vegan sweets, I also found it a little limiting creatively. There were still so many things that I wanted to experiment with that I couldn't do in the bakeshop. I wanted to make things with the vegan M&Ms I finally got a hold of, and I have trouble holding back from anything that I can cover in sprinkles.
However, in the last few weeks the full reality of running a bakery has hit me. I have hired 4 assistants in the last eight weeks, three of whom have already had quit or had to be let go for various reasons. My fourth assistant started a few weeks ago as full time, but recently switched to part time. So I now only have twenty five-ish hours of help a week. The rest of the time it's basically my sole responsibility to do all the ordering, the tweaking of the recipes, the majority of the baking, developing new products, sourcing packaging for those products, scheduling deliveries of the baked goods, and all sorts of other little things that get slipped into the everyday flow of things.
There have been many thirteen hour days. There has also been a lot of sweat and even tears. When I allow myself to stop thinking about everything I still need to do and realize how much has been done since the doors opened in May, it's pretty amazing.
Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and let yourself enjoy something simple like these popsicles. Something you didn't have to spend hours making and that feels refreshing. The raspberries also are tart enough to counteract the sugar. Because no matter how badly I want to tell people that I have not overdosed on sugar, there are definitely days where I don't want to test another cupcake or cookie or cinnamon bun for a very long time.


Raspberry Popsicles
adapted from Family Kitchen


1.5 cup frozen raspberries
1 cup coconut water
1 cup apple juice
2 tablespoons agave nectar

Combine all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. Freeze for at least 2 hours before snacking. Quantity will vary based on the size of your popsicle molds, but this made 8 for me.