White Peach - Trial #1

Background:
My poor husband is allergic to most fruits. He doesn't want your pity, (he's learned to love grapes and watermelon and grapefruit,) but sometimes, I do! To save money we buy fruit from Costco, and I can't finish Costco-sized anything by myself. So at the grocery store recently when I saw white peaches on sale, I couldn't resist getting a few. Honestly, my intention was to eat one and use the other two to make a compote, since my hubs can eat 'em if they're cooked. But after I ate the first, it seemed like such a waste to cook the delicious gift of nature...
OK, so I had one left and I felt guilty. I saw the idea of broiling peaches somewhere and I thought, it's worth a shot to see if it'll make a good popsicle. Verdict? Definitely worth it!

Materials:*
1 medium-large white peach, broiled
2 tbsp half and half
*This only made a little more than 1 popsicle, so unless you're wary of my endorsement, please quadruple the ingredients. That should make 5-6 popsicles.

Methods:
- Peel and thinly slice peach, lay on tin foil-covered pan and broil for ~5 min
- Blend with half and half
- Pour into molds

Result:
Appearance: Absolutely gorgeous. Even though they are white peaches, broiling them brought out a beautiful pink color.
Texture: Perfect, not very icey, easy to bite, and the satisfaction of eating real fruit bits
Flavor: Fresh! Could be sweeter (add a little sweetened condensed milk if you like), but I loved it as is because it was like fresh fruit on a stick, and the natural sweetness shone through.

Conclusion:
Really, surprisingly good in every category. Even though the hubs was hesitant about trying the possibly allergy-inducing popsicle, after one taste he plowed through it. I'd call that success.

Taro pops!

Background:
I love taro. It's my favorite bubble tea flavor, it's delicious as fries, chips, in soups, etc. etc. There aren't many foods that can be delicious sweet OR savory, but taro is one of the ultimate.
A while back I made taro "ice cream", perhaps more accurately called taro cream. I bought a few fresh taro roots from the local grocery store, peeled and steamed them, and then mashed it up with some honey. It's a great simple dish, like purple mashed sweet potatoes. Anyway, I had so much of it that I decided to use a portion to make ice cream. Since it already had water (from the steam) and sweetener, I thought it would be okay if I just mixed it with heavy cream and poured it into the ice cream machine. Well, it's got the taro flavor alright, but it tastes like how it sounds.. frozen heavy cream with mashed taro bits mixed in. Not so fun to eat by the spoonful.
Now, fast forward to my present-day popsicle mode, and I figured I could do some experimenting with my taro cream before I toss it. I'm going to guess the proportions of ingredients I used below, so that you don't have to go through the taro-torturing that I did.

Materials:
1 peeled and steamed taro, mashed
1 tbsp honey/sugar, or to taste
1/4 c heavy whipping cream
1/2 c milk


Methods:
Blend and pour!

Result:
Appearance: Pretty white and creamy looking, but there was a weird separation going on at the top of the popsicle; see Flavor below
Texture: Pretty great, and Korean ice pop-like
Flavor: It was pretty spot on in the mix of taro and creaminess. However, for some reason in my version most of the fat seems to have sunk to the bottom, meaning it was at the top of my popsicle. There was a line of separation and the top tasted creamier. Funnily enough, the taro bits that I didn't blend well floated, meaning that they collected at the bottom of the popsicle. Rather counter-intuitive.

Conclusion:
Awesome. Make this. All the time.

Lime popsicles/paletas

Background:
In the search for a lime-only popsicle, I came across this recipe. The ingredient list looked interesting, so I gave it a try, without doing the final step of adding graham crackers crumbs.

Result:
Appearance: Beautiful! Creamy white with specks of lime zest.
Texture: Soft and creamy.
Flavor: Super intense lime flavor, and quite sweet... maybe too sweet.

Conclusion:
While a friend of mine loved it and raved about it, I thought the sweetened condensed milk was pretty overwhelming and could be cut back a good amount. It is great for the texture though, so I'm keeping that in mind as a great ingredient to use when I need a boost of sweet and a softer pop.

Mint limeade popsicles, Trial #1

Background:
Did I mention how much I love limes? You may have guessed, considering most of my posts so far have included fresh lime juice. For the first time, we splurged on a bag of limes from Costco and actually finished it without any going bad. We often made limeade with lime juice, simple syrup, and seltzer (2:1:2 ratio). So this time, I decided to try a straight-up lime popsicle with some crushed mint.

Materials:
1c lime juice
1/2c simple syrup
fresh mint, crushed under a mortar and pestle


Methods:
- Combine and let ingredients steep for half an hour
- Then strain mint leaves and pour into popsicle molds


Result:
Appearance: Lovely soft lime color
Texture: Not solid ice! Actually turns slushy when biting into it; not sure why. Perhaps the acidity? But it's fantastic.
Flavor: Holy moly, it is sour.

Conclusion:
While the texture is out of this world, it is way too sour to enjoy in a reasonable amount of time. The next batch will be diluted with water and syrup by 50%.

Cold brew cafe au lait popsicles, Trial #1

Background:
Inspired by my husband and friends, I decided to try making cold brew coffee. Although I am not a coffee drinker - I'm extremely sensitive to caffeine - coffee ice cream is one of my very favorite things to eat. Because of this, I was curious enough to want to see what the hype was about.
The verdict? It was so delicious (with generous amounts of dairy and sugar of course,) that I thought it would make a great popsicle.

Materials:
- Cold brew coffee (see recipes #1, #2, #3)
- Half and half

Methods:
- I used approximately 1:1 ratio of the ingredients. If you added enough brown sugar or simple syrup to the coffee, no need to add here.

Result:
Appearance: Nice subtle, even coffee color; the cinnamon (from the cold brew recipe, which sank) was sprinkled at the top
Texture: A really nice combination of icey and creamy (similar to Korean ice pops, if you know what I mean)
Flavor: Awesome sophisticated coffee flavor, without losing the fun of being a popsicle.

Conclusion:
This one is definitely a keeper. Even though I will probably be enjoying this as a 'breakfast popsicle' until I make a decaf version, that won't stop me!

Lime Watermelon Popsicles - Trial #2

This time, I went for simplicity:

Materials:
- Lots of watermelon
- The juice of 4-5 limes
- A good splash of simple syrup

Result:
Appearance: Not very even, splotches where red is absent
Texture: Appropriately icey
Flavor: Wonderful lime and watermelon flavor this time.

Conclusion:
To my surprise, the result was significantly better than Trial #1. I guess what happened was that the yogurt killed the watermelon flavor. This 'purer' recipe allowed all the flavors to shine. Of course the texture of this is like ice, but if that doesn't detract from your enjoyment, make this! This is a keeper.

Lime Watermelon Popsicles - Trial #1

Background:
I used a recipe based on what I saw in this video.

Methods:
- In a blender, fill 3/4 full with watermelon pieces
- Add juice of five limes
- Add a large spoonful of greek yogurt
- Add a dollop of honey
- Blend

Result:
Appearance: Nice even watermelon color
Texture: Appropriately icey
Flavor: Disappointed; could taste the lime but barely any watermelon.

Conclusion:
Although the hubby liked them, I wouldn't make these again due to the dearth of watermelon flavor.

[Side note:
I tasted as I went before deciding the juice of five limes was a good amount.]

Green Tea Popsicles - Trial #1

Materials:
- 2 c fat free half and half
- 4 tbsp simple syrup
- 1 tsp matcha green tea powder

Result:
Appearance: Lovely green color
Texture: Not bad, but want it a little less icey to match the creamy taste.
Flavor: The matcha flavor was awesome; it could be sweeter.

Conclusion:
This recipe was delicious, but not quite perfect. Next time, I'm going to use full-fat half and half and perhaps add a little sweetened condensed milk for texture and flavor.

[Side note:
When taste-testing before freezing, make it sweeter than I would like if I were to sip the liquid.]