In the earliest stages of Small Fry, we had the opportunity to lunch with Jillee of the incredibly genius blog One Good Thing by Jillee. Each day Jill posts a trick, shortcut, or best practice that makes life easier. She is a blogging phenomeon and beyond generous as our mentor, and as we read through her archives we found ourselves with dropped jaws at the easy things we could do to make our households run more smoothly. Things like unloading a 12-pack of soda in seconds, to unshrinking our clothes, to the reason for this post today: frozen yogurt dots! Surely you’ve seen this all over Pinterest, but Jill told us we had to give it a try!
We made several bowls of different brightly colored Greek yogurt sweetened with Agave Nectar, and put them each into their own sandwich bags to make the dots. Using 2-3 drops of food coloring should get you to the same hues! Snipping a small tip of one of the bottom corners on each bag, then squeezing gently, will get you the circular dots. We piped them onto a sheet pan lined with a Sil Pat for easy removal and threw them in the freezer for an hour.
Tip: the easiest way to get the mixture into the bags cleanly is to turn the sandwich bag inside out. Put your hand in the bag like a glove and spoon the mixture right into your covered palm. Once you have 1/4 cup or so of the yogurt mixture hold onto it with your hand and then flip the bag right side out. It will be clean and ready to pipe!
Thanks Jill for letting us put our Small Fry spin on this tasty little treat!
Why Greek Yogurt and Agave Nectar? Keep reading for details.
We love Agave because it is so low on the glycemic index (at a 27, while honey is an 83, and high fructose corn syrup is an 89), meaning it won’t spike your blood sugar and cause that sugar crash that can turn sweet angels into quite the opposite. Using Greek yogurt is an easy alternative to regular yogurt and it provides as much protein as 2 to 3 ounces of meat and a fraction of the carbohydrates that regular yogurt contains. It is also high in fat, and good fat is essential to healthy brain development in kids.
I’ve been wanting to try these for months. Love the suggestion to use agave nectar and Greek yogurt. Doin’ it!
This is genius because spoon feeding yogurt to my 9 mo girl is a messy disaster every time
Total disaster for us too. Cal ate every last one and loved life!
Oh these are a great idea! My baby isn’t here yet so I will just have to make these for me… you know, to make sure they would be okay for the kid.
They’re surprisingly addicting, so watch out!
I love the colors!!! Well done Small Fry girls!
You gals are talented in so many ways…it’s frightening! lol.
Not to mention how adorable your kidlets are!
Thanks for sharing your spin on the frozen yogurt dots! Inspiring!
Thanks for lending your famous post, Jillee! We had issues with the pictures’ resolution, but they’re fixed now if you want any for your site! -Emily
Loving this idea! Definitely on my to do list.
I love this idea. Sorry if this is obvious, but do you use Plain Greek Yogurt and then color it with food coloring OR when you say “brightly colored Greek yogurt” it’s from flavored yogurt plus you add the Agave Nectar? Thanks!
We used food coloring, sorry that was unclear! I used 2-3 drops for each color and it seemed to work great!!
I have been wanting to try this for a while now, they look so yummy. And yours look particularly adorable! The bright colors are so fun.
These look great! I’ve never used agave nectar before, how much did you use to sweeten per amount of yogurt?
I just did it to taste, but it was probably a couple tablespoons for the whole quart!
Do they melt? That has always been my concern.
Also a concern of mine with a 4 yr old, at least the baby is stationary! I think I’ll try these without the dye ^_^
If you freeze them for the full hour, they don’t melt for a bit, but they will start to soften when they’re handled. Perfect for babies who will still sit in highchairs and wear bibs, haha!
Good idea! If you freeze them for the full hour, they don’t melt for a bit, but they will start to soften when they’re handled. Perfect for babies who will still sit in highchairs and wear bibs, haha!
If you freeze them for the full hour, they don’t melt for a bit, but they will start to soften when they’re handled. Perfect for babies who will still sit in highchairs and wear bibs, haha!
Where ever did you find the Vneck tshirt he’s wearing in this photo?! It’s adorable and I have been looking everywhere for some plain tshirts for my 19 month old. I’m sorta surprised at how difficult they are find. Love the snack idea, btw.
We have been on a life long hunt for v-necks for boys as well! American Apparel started carrying them a couple months ago and we’re thrilled.
adorable baby. I’ve been looking for one like that for two weeks. Where did you find him? And where do I pick one up for my house??
After piping are the dots then refrigerated to harden? if yes for how long?
Yes, put them in the freezer for an hour! Thanks for asking, the post is updated now!
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THANK YOU! My granddaughter and I go thru sooooo many packages of these as “outside the home treats” that this will save a bundle! I’m so weird about foods being packaged with so many preservatives, artificial colors/flavors and the effects they have on our kids in the long run!! This is great!! Look forward to creating some this afternoon!
I have been teaching and studying nutrition for over 15 years and agave nectar is actually not low glycemic. It is highly processed and raw honey is extremely better as would natural stevia or trehalose and absolutely NO FOOD COLORING!!!! USE beets, blueberries, homemade lemon curd or other foods to color. AWESOME idea and love the site!
such good information!! thank you so much for the tips & education on this matter!
I have done something similar to this, but used fruit puree instead of agave nectar and food colouring. This would be a fun alternative. Thanks!
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What is agave nectar? Never heard of it.
It’s an alternative sweetener that comes from the agave plant. It is lower on the glycemic scale so it doesn’t spike your blood sugar like other sugars/sweeteners do. It’s as healthy an option as you can get for adding sweetness to things, and all natural! We all love and use it regularly. Hopefully this helps, thanks for your question!
So worried about them melting. We are leaving in a couple of days for a 2 day car ride home for the holidays and i want to make a ton of these for the trip so my bug has a healthy snack that’s not messy (another reason why i spent extra for the applesauce in the squeezable container lol) Glad to see they won’t melt into complete goop again!
Already have everything out and ready to go.. We are using Strawberry/Banana, Raspberry, Blueberry, and Peach Yoplait yogurts. Yay for fun colors and yummy treats!
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well- good idea however food coloring is disgustingly bad for children. to make it worth your while, either do them plain or invest in a vegetable based or European grade food coloring. but man, please don’t give them yellow 5, red 40, etc.
Thank you for saying that!!! These are perfect for lil ones, just without the color!!!
can you use any yogurt or does it have to be greek yougurt?
I would do this but without the food coloring, as they can have the same effect on children as sugar. You could use other things such as beets to give them color.
Nice, but why the artificial food coloring? If we want to be so conscious about what we feed our kids then let’s drop the artificial colors. You could boil some fruit juice down to be thicker and add that, might not even need the agave syrup then! Beet, carrot, pineapple, grape, blueberry, all make great colors! I used this method for cookie icing this year and it worked great.
Also thought I’d provide some food for thought regarding agave nectar. Agave nectar is not a traditional natural sweetener. Is highly refined, and actually has more concentrated fructose than high-fructose corn syrup. It is not a “natural” sweetener.
Yes, it has a low glycemic index, but that’s not the whole story… Here’s an article that explains it fairly well:
http://www.foodrenegade.com/agave-nectar-good-or-bad/
I don’t mean to criticize, I fell into the agave nectar craze myself until I educated myself a little better. Now I’m back to using raw honey mostly…
Loved this idea as soon as I saw it on Pinterest! I tried it today with just a plain yogurt (whatever I had in the house), I don’t have a deep freezer so I put them in my refrigerator freezer for longer… I think about 3 hours or so and when I gave them to my kids they seemed to melt almost instantly. They still loved them, but I was just curious if it would work the same in a regular freezer. Or maybe if I have to freeze them for a lot longer. I do something similar in my dehydrator which are very good as well.
i like to do AT LEAST over night or yes they do melt rather quickly!! let us know if you try again!
A good idea, but adding colour with food dye doesn’t sound like a very healthy idea. Perhaps if the dye that was used was from a natural source- ie. beets to produce a red colour.
great idea. thanks for the tip! we’ve heard that several times now and perhaps we’ll re do the post and add that. thank you!
Artificial food coloring is one of the worst, toxic poisons for children! Do NOT feed your babies this, mamas!!! Most countries have banned artificial coloring. Don’t feed your babies poison. EDUCATE YOURSELF! Good idea if you take away the artificial color. Research.
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so sad
we can’t use food coloring. It is not natural and full of chemicals. I wonder if I can use natural fruits to color it.
I am wondering if these dots can be dehydrated on the trays of a dehydrator that are lined with either parchment paper or plastic wrap. Please advise. Thank you.
I’m sure you could! Gerber makes melt-away dehyrdrated yogurt dots, and that seems like the way to do it! Let us know if it works!
I understand the concern, but people have been eating artificial sweeteners/dyes/preservatives for how long now? I know about 98% of my generation has and no one’s dropped dead. You’re kids will be fine. Relax. I think they’re going to die of suffocation before being harmed by food coloring.
amen.
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mine didn’t freeze i left the in there for several more hours too
sounds great, but, with an ADHD Grandson, I will omit the food coloring.