Creamy, tangy raspberry ice cream pops dipped in luscious raspberry-flavored white chocolate and sprinkled with freeze dried raspberries. The perfect sweet treat for summer!

Part popsicle, part ice cream bar, entirely delicious: these white chocolate rapsberry ice cream pops are bursting with bright fruit flavor. They’d be great naked too, although I think the white chocolate coating makes them all the more impressive.

Happy #PopsicleWeek, y’all! Can we just say that I’ll gladly tolerate this ridiculous heat and humidity if it means I can eat popsicles every day.

I set out, on this most wonderful of weeks, to create a creamy fruit popsicle inspired by one of my favorite instagram accounts. I wanted a pop that was bold and fruity and molded into perfectly rounded bars. And bright pink. As pink as a pop can be.

I wanted a creamy consistency, not icy. So the big question is, to churn or not to churn?

I was hoping there’d be a way to get that ice creamy consistency without churning, but alas, even those ‘no churn’ ice cream recipes don’t hold a candle to the real thing. There really is no shortcut or substitute for the controlled freezing of ice crystals (which is what churning does, freezes the ice cream quickly and evenly, creating the smallest ice crystals possible. And smaller ice crystals = creamier ice cream).

The base of these pops is fresh raspberry puree, sugar, cream and buttermilk. The buttermilk is really the secret here, as it perfectly balances the sugar and enhances the tartness of the berries. Liquid yogurt or kefir would likely work as well and achieve the same effect.

While the raspberry popsicles would be stellar on their own, I dressed them up a bit more by dipping them into raspberry-flavored white chocolate (just white chocolate mixed with crushed up freeze dried raspberries). Granted, I was hoping for a vibrant pepto-pink coating, but the crushed raspberries instead turned the white chocolate a lighter pink with red flecks. I think actual raspberry powder would be finer and would produce a more even shade of pink. Still, they turned out very pretty, even if it wasn’t what I was originally going for.

Now, I know not everyone likes white chocolate. My own husband flat out told me I ruined a perfectly good popsicle by dipping it in the stuff. So know that you can serve these naked and they’re pretty darn awesome.

For me personally though, I love white chocolate and thought it was the perfect compliment to the tart raspberry centers.

I experimented with both churned and unchurned ice cream bases here. Using the identical recipe, I poured a few pops worth straight into the molds. The rest I chilled overnight and then churned in an ice cream maker before spreading into my molds.

If you want to churn your ice cream, you must use a silicone mold, as it will not work in a standard hard-sided popsicle mold. Trust me, you won’t be able to get the ice cream out of the mold in one piece.

You could use paper dixie cups in a pinch, which can peel away from the ice cream. Or, spread the churned ice cream into a parchment-lined baking pan, freeze solid, then lift out the block of ice cream and cut into bars. Slide the stick into each bar, place on a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze again until the stick is good and stuck in there.

Otherwise, if all you have is a standard popsicle mold and don’t want to use any of my clever workarounds, simply skip the churning step and pour your raspberry base right into the molds. The pops will be more like a standard popsicle texture rather than creamy ice cream, but the flavor is just as good (note you’ll also end up with 1 less popsicle as there’s no air in there!)

When dipping, pour your melted white chocolate coating into a tall drinking glass. It should be just wide enough for your popsicle to fit into, but not too wide or it won’t be deep enough to dip the full pop.

If you have leftover white chocolate coating (and you likely will, since you need enough coating to dip all your pops fully) – simply pour it out onto a piece of parchment paper or a silicone mat. Sprinkle with leftover freeze dried raspberries and refrigerate until set. Voila! Raspberry white chocolate bark (which, to be honest, is almost good enough to be an entire recipe post in and of itself!)