Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas [A Cookbook]

I find that frozen dessert recipes are sometimes a real gamble. You usually need specialized equipment or molds, sometimes you have to make a custard, it's always a multi-step process that stretches over a 24-hour period, and the anticipation is high by the time you're able to eat the thing you've made. It's difficult for any recipe to deliver a good return on that kind of investment. But the recipes in this book definitely deliver, and then some. We've tried the raspberry hibiscus pops, the baked banana rum pops and the blackberry yogurt honey pops. All were straightforward to make, not too many steps, but with outstanding flavor in the finished product. You don't need a whole lot of one particular ingredient to get ten pops, so it's not a big financial investment, and generally the time involved is minimal - maybe 30 minutes in the kitchen overall, and a few hours waiting for the pops to freeze. When you consider the trouble one would go through to make ice cream or a granita, these recipes offer a much easier alternative for a frozen treat. So far, the trickiest part for me has been finding a flat spot in my pull-out freezer drawer for the popsicle mold. The author also allows for and recommends some alternative freezing molds in case you don't have an ice pop mold. Her recipes are creative, they use generally convenient ingredients (e.g. three ripe bananas or a whole cantaloupe), and again, not much work compared to some other recipes. We will be using this book again and again over the years, I think. I can't keep the pops in the house for more than two days. I store them in a zip-top bag after un-molding them. I think these recipes taste ten times better than what you can buy in a box in the store's freezer section. Looking forward to trying the aqua frescas section of the book next! I followed other reviewers' advice about when to put the sticks in, how to unmold, and how to store. The tips were very helpful and worked perfectly. The author gives the same advice for dealing with frozen molds, but it's not in big bold letters so you might miss it if you're not looking for it.

There are a lot of recipes in this book that seem very yummy. I tried the horchata with rum one and love it! The size of recipe is about the same as the mold which is helpful. There are plenty of recipes that seem easy to make.

I have already tried straberry and cantalupe paletas, both were beyond great, everyone loved them, summer is comming and our freezer will certainly be packed with wonderful falvors for eveyone. Author talks about each recipe and instructions are very clear and easy to follow, plus the result is great. Really loved this book. UPDATE - June 2013. The more I continue to go through this book and try recipes the more I fall in love with it. By now I have also tried watermelon which was wonderful and very refreshing, lime which turned out a little sour but fascinating. I also made a variation for a "papaya" paleta wich has become one of my favorites. I also made a variation of the apricot-chamomile paleta using fresh peaches from a friend's garden and were really happy with the results. My last experiment was the Passion Fruit Cream pops, I love passion fruit but was not very enthusiastic about this paletas being cream, I even got skeptical while preparing them when I got to the part where 3 egg yolks were introduced but I must say the result was beyond wonderful this is by far the best passion fruit paleta I have ever had. I will still try a not creamy variation (hope it turns out as good as the creamy one). Now everyone in the family is asking which will be the next "experiment" and I have so much volunteers to try them they may have to take turns. What I like the most my most loyal follower is my almost 2 year old boy who not only asks for his paleta every afternoon but has become a really enthusiastic "sous chef".

Just reading the recipes my mouth was watering. I love the variety of the ice pops, while there are the traditional ones like lime and watermelon there are many others such as avocado, spicy pineapple, and yogurt with berries. The shaved ice and frescas recipes are just as appealing and just as creative for both kids and adults. I also like the suggestions on what to use for the molds if you don't want to buy any, example; tall shooter glasses. A must for people wanting an alternative to the fructose based, fake flavorings and food dyes of the store bought ice pops.

This book arrived very fast. The book was packaged well and arrived in great condition! This book has amazing recipes from coconut pops to hibiscus raspberry. I really enjoyed the spicy pineapple pops. So many recipes for kids and more grown up pops like the spicy pineapple. A great healthy treat you can feel good about feeding your kids and good for Mom and Dad too. I highly recommend this summertime treat book. I can't wait to try some more recipes. The recipes are well written and explained precisely and the book is loaded with pretty pictures of the pops. This was a great addition to my cookbook collection. I highly recommend you give it a try!👍🏻

I have only made a couple of recipes from this book so far--the Hibiscus-Raspberry Ice Pop and the Jamaica Aguas Fresca (Hibiscus Iced Tea), but they have both been even better than I expected. I had purchased some hibiscus flowers to make the iced tea, and tried a different recipe I found on-line that called for half as many flowers, and steeping in the refrigerator. I wasn't all that enthusiastic about the final drink, went searching for a way to use up the hibiscus flowers, and remembered this cookbook. I was worried that the iced tea I had made was going to be too weak to work in a popsicle (as frozen items can seem less flavorful than they do when warm), so I followed her recipe for the ice pop which uses her hibiscus agua fresca recipe as a base. The final hibiscus drink was SO much better than the one I had made before--I have since made it twice more (in about a week and a half). The ice pop was fantastic too--although I only have six small popsicle molds (these molds Clearance Sale - Ozera Ice Popsicle Molds, Ice Pop Molds, Ice Pop Maker, Oval, Set of 6, Green which work great, by the way), and using her recipe as written meant that most of each mold was filled with raspberries. So the final ice pop tastes essentially like the most refreshing frozen raspberry ice pop you can imagine--which is not a complaint on any level--but I want to try again with half the amount of raspberries so that I can also taste the hibiscus this time. Anyway, if all of the other recipes are as great as this one (and they sound like they will be), I am looking forward to trying each and every one.

Progressive International PLP-1 Freezer Pop Maker I bought this book because I enjoyed a watermelon-basil paleta at a chili cook-off in Dallas, Texas. Now summer is here and I want to make my own. Though I own an extensive cookbook library... I had nothing devoted to popsicles/paletas. If you like to cook, and if you like to cook with the kids in the kitchen... this is a "must have". I have made the watermelon popsicles and they are delicious and refreshing. (See the photo). The recipes in the book are easy to follow and include lots of photos. There are ice pops, shaved ices (raspados), and drinks (aguas frescas). Perfect for summertime entertaining! These recipes are inexpensive to make, do not take long to prepare, and will delight your family and friends. I recently made the Spicy Pineapple Ice Pops (see the accompanying photo). Incredible! The Paletas de Cajeta (caramel ice pops) sound absolutely sinful! Ooooo... and how about a Mangonadas (spicy mango ice)? Buy this book! Better yet... buy two and give one as a hostess gift when invited to a picnic this summer!

This is book is beautifully printed with lots of great photographs and the text is fun and interesting, too. In the week that I've owned this book I've made 6 of the paleta recipes and they've all been delicious crowd pleasers. We use the zoku and I've found that I need to modify some of the recipes (blending more to eliminate chunks that block the liquid of the popsicle from flowing all around the mold) but they are easy adaptations. The popsicles have all had great textures (not too icey) and although some are a touch on the time consuming side (the sour cream cherry tequila popsicle for example), they're worth it!

Si lo hiciesen en español mucho mejor, solo lo encontré en inglés pero es un imposible teniendo un inglés medio alto

Wunderbare Rezepte für einfache aber köstliche Stieleis und Eisgetränke. Leckere auch ausgefallene oder ungewohnte Geschmacksrichtungen und natürliche Zutaten werden uns bestimmt schon vor dem kommenden Sommer Paletas naschen lassen. Ich kann es nur empfehlen.

I bought this as a gift for another as I have my own well used copy. I use a Zoku set and the paletas set up nicely.

Le livre est top, en anglais. Les recettes sont originales et inconnues pour nous, français donc ça crée de bonnes occasions de découvrir un autre univers culinaires. L'autrice a son magasin à NY, à tester. Ma préférée: l'agua fresca de Jamaica!

I first discovered the world of Mexican agua frescas and paletas on a trip to San Antonio a few years ago, one cinqo de mayo. I didn't understand what I saw (and ate) that day, but I could see that there was a considerable culinary culture behind this. Over the years I found out more, some newspaper articles about paletas, Diana Kennedy, Thomasina Miers, and then this book. I have made around a dozen of the recipes, mainly paletas, but some agua frescas, too. The horchata recipe uses ground rice, rather than the boiled rice that many internet recipes use, and I think that makes a far more authentic result. The horchata makes a very pleasant paleta, too, although there isn't a recipe for it in the book (just add a little extra sugar and freeze in a mould). I used a cheap set of moulds, which are just as effective as the far more expensive versions, although the freeze time required is more like five hours than the the minutes the expensive gadgets promise. Instead of the plastic end caps, I bought some (also very cheap) wooden lolly sticks; the result is a pleasantly authentic paleta, using half of Fany's standard recipes to make a set of four. Extracting the paletas from the clutches of the moulds can be a challenge; the avocado ones I have found to be easy to remove, the orange/tequila (substituted instead of mezcal) almost impossible. Some recipes ask for ingredients that are hard to find, but I substituted some dulce de leche (I made my own by boiling a tin of Condensed Milk) for cajeta, and I improvised with various chilis for the named ones in the book - that was tricky to get right, and my spicy pineapple was a little too spicy - but very interesting and not entirely unpleasant. English chills are far too variable in heat to be reliable; if you can find some genuine and fresh jalapeño or serrano chills you might have easier success. As an American book, all measures are in cups. This is ok for liquids/pulps, but is annoying for sugar. A tip: most recipes use equal measures of sugar and water, which you might recognise as "simple syrup". If you are planning on make a number of these recipes, it might help to make up a quantity of this in advance. A few recipes will add extra sugar; fewer use extra water. One minor irritation: the paleta recipes all end with almost exactly the same instruction about filling a mould and freezing time. This is a great resource, and a useful introduction to an aspect of the cuisine of a different culture. The flavour combinations are exciting and good - try the chili mixes, and the avocado paleta is a stand-out. Give them a try, and you'll turn your back on chemically flavoured commercial ice creams and lollies.