There’s heat that makes you want to breathe in the frozen air from a deep freezer and burn your tongue licking it’s walls.
There’s heat that leaves you understanding the phrase ‘beads of sweat’. You form them like crystals, drop by drop and soak everything with out.
There’s heat that let’s you know who the real heroes are and baby, it ain’t you or me. The most valuable players are the sellers on this Lagos streets, baby.
And there’s cold that’s soothing and refreshing in the most colourful way. Three ways actually. With the orange of mangoes, watermelon red and a milky caramel.
Here’s what I’ve learnt about making ice pops
– You don’t need special molds. You can make them in disposable cups
– Some mixtures will be thick enough to let you put the stick in from the start if you’re using disposable cups and others won’t. For thin mixtures let the pops freeze for a bit till slushy and then put the stick in. Most molds have stands that allow the sticks stand from the start without issues.
– my ice pop takes just under half a cup of liquid so it’s easy to work out just how much I need for a certain quantity.
– to get them stress free out of the molds/ cups, dunk and dip mold into hot water for a few second or two. The pops should slide out with ease
I made:
Mango cream
I blended 2 cups of mango puree with the zest of one lime and a 78g tin of condensed milk, about 2 tablespoons. It created the most luscious mango cream ever.
The sticks stayed in from the get go in my homemade molds. The store-bought ones were fine from the start.
After 24 hours of freezing, the mango refused to exit the mold in a friendly manner. One had to employ table knife to extract its somewhat soft self.That person was me.
I think it was a touch creamy – I’m learning that ice pops need a certain amount of ‘water’/ liquid to freeze like we’re used to #notetoself.
Taste wise? This was the outright winner for me. And daughter #1. Fresh, fruity, of reallllllll mango. This shall be repeated and recipe tweaked for a firmer set.
The puree worked well to take a stick from the beginning in my mold test.
And I also made some with our new ice pop molds.
Watermelon & Zobo
Here, freshly juiced watermelon joined a rich zobo syrup. The syrup is made from cooked down zobo liquid and sugar. It forms a beautiful, deep glaze that adds depth to the colour and flavour of watermelon juice.
I used my mold and disposable cups. In the molds, I finished some off with mango cream.
for the disposable cups, I put the sticks in about an hour after they went it when it had firmed up a bit and could hold.
Daughter #2 was crazy, is crazy about the watermelon-zobo one, except the mango base.
I liked that it was sweet – the gorgeous colour and the combination of zobo and watermelon thrilled me.
Salted caramel coconut
I loved making this. The result is a rich, sweet and salty. But, and there’s a but, like the liquid the pop seperated into two layers. The top was the colour and essence of caramelising the coconut.
The bottom? Resembled in taste and texture some sort of sherbet, with a creaminess and bubbliness on my tongue but not half bad. May focus on making pops of the upper bit…
Daughter #1 liked the base but not the creamier ‘rest’ so I finished it up for her. The flavours are there but the sherbet type texture and feel on the tongue feels weird. Not repulsive but you know when you have one thing in mind but see a different expression. Sigh.
Anyways, we shall be making ice pops all summer sunny, rainy season long xxx
With as many local fruits as we can use. xxx[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Tropical Icepops/ Lollies – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]