Chocolate PB Banana Pops

Chocolate peanut butter banana popsicles are the dessert pop of this series: ripe bananas, peanut butter, and cocoa blended with milk into a base that freezes fudgy instead of icy, closer to frozen mousse than to a juice bar. Make them for after dinner on hot nights, or stash a batch for the post-workout hour when you want something cold and a little salty-sweet. Hands-on time is about ten minutes; the freezer does the rest overnight. One stick of Saltivate Raw Unflavored dissolves into the blender base, and the sodium it carries, 800mg per serving, works like the pinch of salt in any good chocolate recipe. It deepens the cocoa and sharpens the peanut butter, so the finished pops taste darker than the ingredient list suggests.

Ingredients

Makes 6 popsicles in standard 3 oz molds.

• 2 large ripe bananas (about 1 cup mashed)
• 1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) creamy peanut butter
• 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp maple syrup, or to taste
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 stick pack Saltivate Raw Unflavored

Instructions

1. Add the bananas, milk, peanut butter, cocoa powder, maple syrup, vanilla, and the Saltivate stick to a blender.
2. Blend until completely smooth, about 60 seconds, scraping down the sides once.
3. Taste and adjust: more maple syrup if your bananas were on the green side, another spoonful of cocoa for a darker pop.
4. Pour into six 3 oz popsicle molds, tap the molds on the counter to knock out air bubbles, and insert sticks.
5. Freeze at least 6 hours, ideally overnight.
6. To unmold, run the outside of each mold under warm water for 10 to 15 seconds and pull gently.

Tips

• Swap the milk for full-fat canned coconut milk to make the pops dairy-free and even creamier.
• The riper the bananas, the sweeter the pop. With very spotty bananas you can skip the maple syrup entirely.
• Once frozen solid, pop them out of the molds, wrap each one, and store in a freezer bag for up to a month.

One stick across six pops works out to about 130mg of sodium per pop, folded into the chocolate as gentle seasoning. The mix to use here is Saltivate Raw Unflavored on-the-go packets: plain, zero sugar, no stevia, with a clean salty edge that rounds out the chocolate, and just as at home in a blender of bananas and cocoa as in a water bottle.

Per serving: about 75 kcal (estimate).