Recipe: blackberry-yuzu ice pops from Janet Dimond of Augie’s Gourmet

PREP TIME: 10 minutes FREEZING TIME: overnight Serves 9 to 10

BLACKBERRY-YUZU ICE POPS

¾ cup cane sugar 1 lemon 2 limes 8 cups fresh blackberries 2 tbsp yuzu juice

1. In a saucepan, pour sugar into ¾ cup water and set over medium heat. Stir occasionally for 5 to 8 minutes until sugar is dissolved. Do not boil. Add 1 tbsp lemon zest and 1 tsp lime zest. Squeeze 2 tbsp each lemon and lime juices into a bowl.

2. Extract blackberry juice with a juicer, yielding at least 1⅔ cups, or purée berries with a food processor and strain with a sieve. Use a ladle to extract excess juices.

3. Pour juice into a large measuring cup. Add ¾ cup cane syrup, yuzu, lemon and lime juices and zest. Stir to mix. Add more syrup to taste. Pour into 3-oz ice pop moulds. Add wooden sticks. Place in back of freezer overnight.

TIP Find pressed yuzu juice at Sanko (730 Queen St. W., 416-703-4550).

JANET DIMOND AUGIE’S GOURMET ICE POPS Janet Dimond has transformed a one-day experiment—selling 200 homemade ice pops at the Roncesvalles block party—into Augie’s Gourmet Ice Pops, a bona fide cottage industry. She now sells her wares at farmers’ markets, Pusateri’s and Whole Foods. This recipe gets its tartness from the yuzu, an Asian citrus fruit that tastes like the love child of a mandarin orange and a lime. She discovered it while travelling in Japan, where it’s used in cocktails, in sauces and even for bathing.

Recipes developed by Victoria Walsh. Recipe photography by Ryan Szulc. Portrait photography by Raina and Wilson. Illustrations by Aleksandar Janicijevic. Interviews by Denise Balkissoon, Ariel Brewster, Andrew D’Cruz, Jennifer Goldberg, Matthew Hague, Claire Hastings, Bronwen Jervis and Simone Olivero.