Easy Festive Holiday Ice Ring for Punch

inBrunch Recipes, Cocktail Recipes, Cooking Tips, Entertaining Tips, Holiday & Dinner Party Recipes, Other Tips, Recipes
  • YIELDS | 1 SERVINGS
  • PREP TIME | 5 MINS PLUS 3 HRS FREEZING TIME
  • COOK TIME | 0 MINS

I like to make punch for holiday gatherings. Guests love helping themselves to refills, and I appreciate the time it saves me as I work on dinner’s finishing touches. As always, this ice ring is easy to make and only requires a few ingredients we already have on hand for the holidays⁠—think bay leaf, sage, cranberries, lemons, limes, and rosemary. There are hundreds of combinations. Let your imagination run wild. My only caveat: use real and not inedible ingredients. You wouldn’t want a guest accidentally ingesting a plastic leaf or two. Pictured is a simple Thanksgiving ice ring made with lemon, bay leaf, and cranberries.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium Bundt cake pan
  • 3 12-ounce cans flavored sparkling water, lemon lime soda, or ginger ale
  • 3 thin lemon slices
  • 3 medium fresh sage leaves and 3 small fresh sage leaves
  • 6 cranberries, halved crosswise, bottoms discarded

Instructions

  1. Into a medium-sized Bundt cake pan, pour 2 cans of the sparkling water or soda, and pop into the freezer for 30 minutes.
  2. Remove from freezer—the liquid will be slightly slushy. Place the fruit on top of the slush in a pattern. (I like to put the lemon slices in first and then top each with a sliced cranberry half. Then in between the lemon slices, I place one small sage leaf slightly overlapping one medium sage leaf and then place a halved cranberry at the bottom of each, as pictured above.)
  3. Return the ice ring to the freezer. Don’t worry if the ingredients have shifted—simply straighten them out. Let freeze for 30 more minutes.
  4. Remove from freezer and pour the last can of soda into the pan, return to the freezer and let freeze for at least 2 hours. Keep frozen until ready to use.

Notes

I remove the ring from the Bundt pan and place it into a large resealable bag. The ring takes up less space and I get my Bundt pan back to use for other holiday recipes.

Make beautiful ice rings for bridal and baby showers by freezing edible flowers and fresh berries into patterns and floating in champagne and orange juice punch.