Easy Festive Yogurt Bark

White frozen yogurt bark with kiwi and pomegranate seeds on a wooden board

This is as simple as it gets. Make this in your child care setting or at home, and adapt it to use whatever you have on hand. Provide endless opportunities for your kids to get hands-on, exploring, creating, and tasting. The end result? A beautiful and yummy snack to enjoy at your upcoming holiday gathering.

Ingredients

• 2 cups unsweetened Greek yogurt (I like 2% for its creamy texture)

• 2 tablespoons honey* or maple syrup

• Assorted fruit - use what you've got, but aim for a mix of colours and shapes! For the holidays I used diced kiwi and pomegranate seeds.

*avoid feeding honey to children under 12 months of age

Method

• Mix the honey or maple syrup into the yogurt in a small bowl.

  Place a sheet of parchment paper on a rimmed baking sheet or in a 9x13 baking dish

• Use a spatula to spread the yogurt evenly onto the parchment - aim for a thickness of around ¼ inch

• Scatter the fruit over the yogurt in any pattern you like, and press it in gently.

• Freeze for at least 3 hours (overnight is best) until firm.

• Lift the parchment and use your hands or a knife to break the frozen bark into pieces

  Beyond the recipe: Become Rainbow Food Explorers

• Customize. Let kids help choose different fruits to use for this recipe. Take them shopping if you can. Encourage them to choose a mix of different colours, textures and shapes, and to try a new fruit. Have you ever eaten persimmons?

• Taste. Taste the plain yogurt and then let kids stir in honey or syrup to sweeten. Notice and describe how the flavour changes when a bit of sweetener is added.

• Explore. Invite kids to explore the fruit before and after it’s cut up, noticing how it looks, feels and smells. Discover the amazing textures, features, patterns and shapes that appear as the different fruits are cut up. Ask plenty of questions to keep the focus on exploring:  Can you find the flower inside a persimmon? What happens to the pattern inside a kiwi when it’s cut into tiny shapes? What do you see as a pomegranate is opened up?

• Describe. Pop some fresh fruit into little hands and invite kids to taste if they want (no pressure!) Ask them to use lots of descriptive words (sour, sweet, crunchy etc) to reflect all the textures and flavours they notice.

• Create. Kids love any opportunity to be creative. Let them make their own beautiful patterns and pictures as they place the fruit on the yogurt. Explore how it feels and looks as they gently push the fruit into the yogurt.

• Predict. Invite kids to think about what will happen to their creation in the freezer. Chat about the “why” behind those predictions.

• Explore. How does the frozen bark look, feel and taste. What’s different about it? How have the yogurt and fruit changed during freezing? Listen for the sound as the bark is broken or cut into pieces.

• Observe. Notice what happens as the frozen bark sits out of the freezer for several minutes.  How does it change as it warms up? (Hint: you’ll probably want to eat it right away!)