Tasked with making a Jubilee treat, grown-up ice lollies were just the ticket for Sarah Rankin

For the Jubilee celebrations, my street decided to host a barbecue. A lovely opportunity to get together, regardless of whether your views on the monarchy are undying devotion or complete ambivalence. It turns out that when a MasterChef finalist lives on your street, the pressure for them to produce crowd-pleasing food that is delicious, Torode and Wallace-worthy and suitable for a barbecue, will result in said MasterChef finalist having sleepless nights.

I finally decided on Greek lamb koftas; lamb mince heaving with cumin and served with a chimichurri dip, soy, honey and ginger drumsticks, paneer kebabs with Thai green curry spice and some chipotle mayo for the burgers. I dutifully prepped it all and I’m happy to report all went down well with the residents of our cul-de-sac. Relief all round.

GROWN-UP ICE LOLLIES

I had however, a trump card up my sleeve, just in case they weren’t as receptive as I’d hoped. I decided to try some grown-up ice lollies.

I made a quick raspberry coulis by whizzing a punnet of fresh rasps with around 50g icing sugar, sieved until smooth and added it to half a bottle of prosecco. I also mixed together a small carton of coconut cream, oven dried pineapple slivers (make these in the oven by slicing pineapple with a mandoline and cooking for three hours or so at 100C/80 Fan/215F/Gas Mark 1/2 on greaseproof and snapping into smaller pieces when cool), 150ml of coconut rum, squeeze of honey and 100ml of pineapple juice. I poured each flavour into lolly moulds and froze overnight.

The alcohol results in a softer freeze as the process is slowed by the booze. Too much and they won’t freeze at all, so exercise restraint. I tasted one of each in the morning for research reasons and had to have an extra coffee. They were delicious, if a tad lethal, so be warned.

So what did the neighbours think? Sadly we’ll never know as after three large Pimms I forgot I had made them. They were only discovered the following morning when searching for croissants.

Alcohol-infused ice lollies were delicious.