I learned something about myself while making today’s pop — it seems I am constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone. I was planning to make a perfectly nice coconut-mango pop, but found myself thinking “I wonder how I could make it look pretty?” So I decided to try polka-dot pops. Join me, won’t you?
The ingredients are, as usual, simple:
After last week’s semi-disaster with the coconut cream pudding, I wanted to go straight to the source and use coconut milk as my base. I saw mangoes advertized in my grocery store’s flier this week, and have been thinking about using them in a pop since then. From the picture, you can see that didn’t happen. I didn’t have time to get to the store, so I used frozen chunks instead.
The idea for the polka dots came from the usual mess I make every time I pour my ice pops. The drips generally freeze into nice little dots,so I figured if I could do them on purpose, it would be pretty. I used mango nectar and a spoon to try to make dots along the sides of the molds. Once again, a little dropper would have been a better tool — it was hard to control the spoon, and my dots ended up looking more accidental than I’d really hoped they would:
The dots have potential, don't you think?
I also made a tactical error in mixing up the pop base — for once, I made too little base rather than too much. I ended up making the third pop layered, with coconut/mango puree, coconut milk (with a dash of sugar) and mango nectar layers. It turned out really pretty, and showed the potential for contrasting dots (though the photo does not do it justice:
These looked much prettier in real life.
These pops turned out delicious. The coconut and mango balanced each other well, with neither flavor dominating. They were a perfect pop for a semi-grey day. I’m also looking forward to revisiting this combination in the fall, because the colors remind me very much of candy corn.
