perfect popsicle texture!

the last few times that i’ve attempted to make my own popsicles, i’ve been very disappointed with the results.  they were always frozen so hard!  somewhat like licking an ice cube.  how did commercial popsicles get that nice, soft, bite-able texture?  after last week’s successful rhubarb sorbet, i decided to try an experiment this weekend.  i had a small batch of tiny locally grown peaches from the farmer’s market that seemed to be more trouble to eat than they were worth (tiny, hard to peel but too fuzzy to eat the peel, not super sweet…) so i decided to make peach popsicles.  first, i boiled some water cut a little “x” on the bottom of each peach, and then put them in the boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds.  then the skins slid right off (except for the two that weren’t quite ripe).  i halved the peaches, then dumped them into my food processor.  i had originally planned to stew the peaches with a little sugar, but i ended up just using them fresh.  i blended them in the food processor until the mixture was smooth, then popped the puree into the fridge overnight.

the next day, i dumped the puree (there wasn’t much there!) into my ice cream maker and turned the crank every now and then.

once it reached a pretty firm consistency, i pushed the mixture into some popsicle molds and put them back into the freezer overnight.  when i had one for lunch today…

it was the perfect consistency!  bite-able, but still frozen.  not drippy… delicious!  now i just have to figure out how to pack the molds without air bubbles….