Food that recalls childhood memories -- yet packs sophisticated flavor -- is hot right now (Exhibit A: cupcakes). The cool version you'll want to sink your teeth into in the heat of summer? Grown-up ice pops.
Infuse familiar strawberry with a bite of basil. Use espresso powder to deepen the flavor of the chocolate pop you remember from the ice-cream truck. Hook up fresh melon with vodka and melon liqueur. Add bits of cut-up fruit to make your pops pretty.
While these pops taste grown-up, you still can enjoy the childlike ease of experimenting with them during these long, hot days. For some cooks, ice-cream makers take too much trouble and too much room in the freezer, not to mention the outlay of bucks for something you tend to use only in the summer. Molds for ice pops, on the other hand, can be found on the cheap.
Unlike in fancier types of cooking, mistakes tend to be edible -- if a mixture won't freeze enough to hold together on a stick, it still usually makes a pretty yummy slushy. Combine any flavors you like. As a poster on chowhound.com recently suggested, make pops out of your leftover coffee (with a bit of cream and sugar thrown in). Or you can do as cookbook author Deborah M. Schneider suggests and freeze mixtures in the ice-cube tray with little skewers attached for cool party fare.
You'll be right on trend. The July issue of Gourmet magazine features grown-up frozen treats that include a layered raspberry-chocolate ice pop, enlivened with a tablespoon of framboise. For a brief time this summer, the Alexandria, Va., restaurant Rustico was serving pops made with beer -- in flavors including raspberry, apple and double-chocolate (with stout).
"If you're sitting at a table and you see them, everybody orders them. The fact that it's 400 degrees outside has something to do with it," said Greg Engert, beer director for the restaurant. "It's a cool twist." (A cool twist the restaurant hopes to offer again soon; the pops are on ice until the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control determines whether they violate rules about how beer is served, Engert said.)
In her 2006 cookbook Baja! Cooking on the Edge, Schneider, a San Diego chef, wrote about eating colorful frozen fruit bars called paletas, flavored with everything from pink papaya to tart tamarind, during her travels along the Mexican coastline. Those flavors, she said, appealed to all. "Whenever I think of paletas, I always think of a Sunday afternoon when the whole family dresses up and goes out after church," Schneider said in an interview. "You see the whole family walking down the street eating paletas."
For easy pops at home, after adding your mixture you can cover molds with foil and leave a slit in the center to put your sticks in immediately -- the foil will stabilize the sticks for the freezer. When you tip out the frozen pops, run tepid water over the bottoms of the molds to ease them out, or put the molds in a bowl of tepid water for 30 seconds or so.
Your biggest challenge may be working with alcohol -- add too much, and your pops won't freeze. Schneider advises using no more than 1 / 2 cup liquor or liqueur for every 4 cups of juice (except for wine, which can be used in slightly larger quantities). And when your pops do come together, they may be softer than the average frozen treat.
Schneider doesn't love them any less for that. "You just have to eat them fast."
kate.shatzkin@baltsun.com
carrie.lyle@baltsun.com
ONLINE Learn how to make a simple syrup to flavor frozen treats at baltimoresun.com / icepops
Strawberry-Basil Ice Pops
Makes 8
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
20 large basil leaves
3 cups hulled strawberries
Combine the balsamic vinegar, water, sugar and basil leaves in a saucepan over low heat. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and discard the basil leaves.
Blend strawberries and balsamic-vinegar mixture in a blender until smooth. Pour into ice-pop molds and freeze. Add wooden sticks when mixture is slushy, about 1 hour.
Developed by Carrie Lyle
Per serving: 75 calories, 0 grams protein, 0 grams fat, 0 grams saturated fat, 19 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fiber, 0 milligrams cholesterol, 2 milligrams sodium
Blackberry Cabernet Paletas
Makes 10
1 cup good cabernet or other fruity red wine
1 1/2 cups sugar, plus more to taste
4 to 6 cups mixed fresh or frozen berries, mostly blackberries
juice of 1 lime, preferably a Mexican limon
Combine the wine and sugar in a saucepan. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes to cook off some of the alcohol. Add the berries and cook for 10 minutes, or until softened and very mushy.
Strain through a coarse sieve into a bowl, pressing down well to force as much fruit puree through as possible (or use a food mill).
Measure the yielded juice; if necessary, add enough water to equal 3 cups of juice. Stir in the lime juice. Cool and taste for sugar; add more if you want it sweeter.
Pour into paleta or freezer pop molds and insert sticks. Freeze and enjoy.
From "Baja!: Cooking on the Edge" by Deborah M. Schneider
Per serving: 143 calories, 1 gram protein, 0 grams fat, 0 grams saturated fat, 36 grams carbohydrate, 3 grams fiber, 0 milligrams cholesterol, 1 milligram sodium
Midori Melon Ice Pops
Makes 6
4 cups ( 1/2 -inch pieces) peeled ripe honeydew melon
5 tablespoons Midori (melon liqueur)
3 tablespoons vodka
1 1/2 tablespoons superfine granulated sugar
Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Pour puree into a sieve lined with a double thickness of cheesecloth set over a bowl and let drain, undisturbed, 30 minutes. Discard solids in sieve.
Pour liquids into ice-pop molds and freeze at least 24 hours. Add wooden sticks when mixture is slushy, about 1 hour.
From Gourmet, August 2000
Per serving: 90 calories, 1 gram protein, 0 grams fat, 0 grams saturated fat, 14 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fiber, 0 milligrams cholesterol, 21 milligrams sodium
Mayan Chocolate Pops
Makes 6
1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Combine the cocoa, espresso powder, cinnamon and sugar in a saucepan. Whisk in enough of the half-and-half to make a paste, then gradually whisk in the rest of the half-and-half. Gently bring to a boil, stirring often.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature, then freeze in molds. Add wooden sticks when mixture is slushy, about 1 hour.
Developed by Carrie Lyle
Per serving: 218 calories, 3 grams protein, 13 grams fat, 6 grams saturated fat, 31 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fiber, 30 milligrams cholesterol, 33 milligrams sodium
Cool flavors
Here are more flavor combinations to try in frozen pops:
Rosemary with lemonade
Peach nectar and prosecco, for a frozen Bellini
Cucumber with melon liqueur
Mint, lime, club soda and rum, for a frozen Mojito
Cola and juice from a jar of maraschino cherries (suggested in an article from latinitasmagazine.org)
[Kate Shatzkin and Carrie Lyle]