Authentic Mexican Ice Pops Cookbook: Traditional Recipes for Paletas, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas - Perfect for Summer Parties, Family Gatherings & Refreshing Treats

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.