Beat the heat with these homemade popsicles in classic Filipino flavors: mango, ube-cheese, and buko pandan.
As summer heats up to class-cancelling, record-breaking levels, stay cool at home with some homemade popsicles. Making your own lets you play around with flavors, and gets your future self an icy, refreshing treat that’s miles better than the store-bought kind.
The secret ingredient for creamier homemade popsicles? Nestlé All-Purpose Cream.
Nestlé All-Purpose Cream yields pops with a richer, smoother texture than one made with milk. Why?
When making popsicles, you’re freezing a flavored liquid into a solid. Milk has a high water content, which forms large ice crystals when frozen. Large ice crystals = harder, icier popsicles.
Cream has a richer consistency than milk because of its higher fat content. Fat doesn’t freeze like water does—in fact, it forms smaller ice crystals. Small ice crystals = smoother, creamier texture. If you’ve seen premium ice creams boast their high fat percentage, this is why!
When making homemade popsicles, you can control the final texture with the amount of milk or cream (or both) you use. Adding ingredients like condensed milk, yogurt, or cream cheese also helps increase the fat content of your base.
While custom popsicle molds are great, you can make DIY milds with plastic cups, popsicle sticks, and a sheet of aluminum foil. Here’s how to do it:
Transfer your DIY popsicles to the freezer to set, about 8 hours total to overnight.
Like the mango ice candy of your childhood, but in the shape and ergonomics of a popsicle. Coconut water adds a rounder, tropical flavor.
Make popsicle base: Combine Nestlé All-Purpose Cream, coconut water, condensed milk, and mango purée in a bowl. Stir to mix.
Freeze: Prepare clean popsicle molds. Fill molds with mango cream. Cover molds and insert the popsicle stick ⅔ of the way. Freeze for 8 hours to overnight.
To make these two-toned popsicles, you need to par-freeze the ube layer before adding the cheese mixture.
Make popsicle base: Combine Nestlé All-Purpose Cream, water, condensed milk, and cream cheese in a bowl. With a spatula, mix until cream cheese is well combined into the cream mixture. Switch to a spoon to scrape off and discard any bubbles from the surface of the mixture.
Make ube and cheese bases: Divide cream mixture between two mixing bowls. In the first bowl, add processed cheese cubes and yellow food coloring. Stir to incorporate. This will be your cheese mixture; cover and store it in the fridge. In the second bowl, add ube extract and stir to combine. This will be your ube mixture.
Freeze: Prepare clean popsicle molds. Fill half of the molds with ube cheese. Cover molds and insert the popsicle stick ⅔ of the way. Freeze until partially frozen, about 3 hours. Remove cover and pour cheese mixture into the molds until full. Cover again and freeze, 5 hours to overnight.
Pandan jelly and shredded coconut meat makes these buko pandan popsicles more fun to eat!
Make popsicle base: Combine Nestle All-Purpose cream, coconut water, condensed milk, and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir to combine. With a spoon, scrape off bubbles from the surface of the mixture and discard.
Fill popsicle molds: Prepare clean popsicle molds. Add nata de coco in the molds until less than ⅓ full. Next, add cream mixture until molds are ⅔ full—you’ll fill them all up later. Cover and store leftover cream in the fridge.
Freeze: Cover molds and insert popsicle stick ⅔ of the way. Freeze popsicles until partially frozen, about 3 hours. Uncover popsicle molds, then add shredded coconut meat and remaining cream mixture around the popsicle sticks, filling up the molds. Cover and freeze again, 5 hours to overnight.
