I was looking for a way to recreate Go-Gurt pops for my six-year-old's school lunches as close to the "real thing" as possible. I found ZipZicles while researching online and figured for the price, it was certainly worth a shot. I had very little problem filling these up with fruit-flavored yogurt. I puréed the fruit in my Magic Bullet first, to prevent any fruit chunks (which I imagine would be difficult for kids to suck out of these) and after mixing with homemade vanilla yogurt, I carefully filled each ZipZicle to just below the fill line. Before filling, I blew air into each ZipZicle to open it up for easier filling, which definitely helped - I forgot to blow into one before filling and it took me twice as long, and resulted in a bigger mess. I used a small kitchen funnel, which kept things neat and made it much easier to control how much went into each ZipZicle. I will say, though, that I've spent a lot of time filling Squooshi pouches and other squeeze-type food containers, so if you're having trouble with ZipZicles, it should get easier and quicker with practice! After filling, I rinsed off any excess yogurt and sealed them, then squished them firmly to ensure the seal wouldn't explode - so far, no problems. I store them in the fridge in an old GoGurt box I'd saved from before, which keeps them neatly stored and easy for little hands to reach. Comparative to GoGurt brand tubes, which only hold 2.25 ounces of whatever concoction Yoplait is calling yogurt these days, these held between 2.6-2.8 ounces each. They can be a little tricky for small fingers to open; I spent a few minutes showing my son and having him "practice" before I packed one in his school lunch. He was super excited to have his own homemade "GoGurts" and apparently told his entire class about it, and later told me that his "GoGurts" tasted way better than the store-bought ones. Score! :) I've also used these to store pizza sauce and dressing in our homemade "Lunchables" and I plan to make some freezer pops this week. My husband even stole a few to ice some cupcakes this past weekend and raved that ZipZicles were easier and offered more control over his decorating than our $50+ icing bag and tip set! I can definitely see a LOT of uses for ZipZicles. The one downside is, they aren't reusable or dishwasher-safe. For some reason, I had thought they were reusable before ordering, but once they arrived, I realized they wouldn't last beyond maybe two or three uses. I sacrificed one to test in the top rack of the dishwasher and as I expected, it didn't hold up. So if you plan to use these all year long, invest in a few packages! We probably won't be purchasing anymore, because we're fans of reducing our waste whenever possible, so I'm currently looking for a reusable alternative. If ZipZicle could produce something very similar, but reusable, I would definitely be all over it!
