Fresh Coconut Paletas

As anyone who follows my Pinterest boards has probably guessed, I'm a little bit obsessed with homemade frozen treats right now. My friend/neighbor/food co-conspirator, Jackie, got a popsicle mold a while back, and has been sharing her delicious creations with us. After devouring a particularly memorable horchata pop, I broke down and bought my own mold.

The beauty about making paletas (or popsicles, whatever) is that you can completely fly by the seat of your pants while making them. Get as creative as you want. Throw a little of whatever sounds good in the blender, taste it, doctor it to your heart's content. In other words, my kind of food creating.

For my first batch of paletas, I cracked open a couple of fresh, young coconuts (I was intimidated by how this was going to work, but this post made it a cinch). I used almost all the juice of both coconuts and the meat of one of them (because I couldn't resist eating the other). I also tossed in maybe 3/4 c shredded coconut from a bag and about 2 tablespoons of honey. Again, the beauty of these is that you can really adjust the ingredients to taste, and recipes are difficult anyway, since popsicle molds come in so many different sizes. I knew my molds held a total of 25 oz of liquid and my blender has hatch marks for ounces on the side, so that helped me eyeball how much liquid I needed to end up with. I blended everything together, poured the concoction in my molds, and waited.

I was delighted with the way the finished product came out. Like eating a fresh coconut, only with a lovely crunchy, icy, refreshing texture.

I'll definitely be making these again.