Zoku Fudgsicles

I don't think there's a part of the country that hasn't been suffering from the heat these past few weeks.  Personally, having lived in Arizona and in the Southern CA Low Desert, I'm just grateful to have air conditioning and not be looking at brown-outs on 110°F days.  But I have been using my Zoku quite a bit, mostly for simple juice pops.  I'd tried a Zoku-branded recipe for fudgsicles once before and wasn't happy with the results, so I'm pleased to say that this recipe seems to work great.

• 2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 2/3 C heavy cream
• 1/4 C whole milk
• 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 Tbsp vanilla

1.  Place the chocolate in a medium-sized glass bowl, and set aside.
2.  In a medium saucepan, combine cream, milk, and cocoa powder over medium-high heat, whisking constantly.  Bring to a simmer.  Remove from heat and pour mixture over chocolate.  Let sit for 2 minutes without stirring.
3.  Whisk together until chocolate is melted, whisk in vanilla.  Refrigerate until cool.
4.  Stir cooled sauce to re-combine.  Insert stick into mold, pour sauce into prepared Zoku, and let stand until frozen, 10-12 minutes.

Yield: 3 Zoku pops

Robyn's notes: the texture of these is exactly what I look for in a fudgsicle.  Remove from Zoku slowly, the soft consistency wants to stick.  It'll be fine if removed gently but will be a disaster if you force it.  I also thought these were great with some banana coins in the mold first.  Does not store well, I had some leftover in the fridge overnight and it had thickened to a point the following day that I had to defrost the Zoku to get the popsicle out (and I'd stirred it a lot before pouring it in the mold).

*** 3 Stars: Good. At least one of us liked this enough for me to make it again, but not often