Marcianos

Ice Pops

We call ice pops marcianos, martians, in Peru. I’m not sure why, but maybe it has something to do with the antennalike way they look. Vendors sell their homemade push-up pops all summer long in coolers along the sidewalks, which seemed like fair game to an eight-year-old, so I started making my own after school. Before long, I figured out that I liked making the ice pops a whole lot more than selling them. I put a sign on our front door with my daily menu, my friends knocked, and all I had to do was grab one from the freezer. Fácil—easy.

Since you just mix everything together, it's easy to play around with different flavors. Adjust the amount of sugar to taste, but keep in mind that the pops won’t taste as sweet frozen as at room temperature. You can find long plastic ice pop bags (ice candy bags) at Latin markets or online. Freeze the pops on their side so the ingredients stay evenly distributed.

Lucuma Classico

1 cup fresh or frozen lucuma pulp (see sidebar, page 240)
1 cup whole milk
5 to 6 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Mango-Coconut

2 very ripe mangos
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
5 to 6 tablespoons sugar
6 small fresh mint leaves

Spicy Rocoto-Watermelon

3 cups cubed fresh watermelon, seeds removed
½ teaspoon rocoto paste (see page 34), or to taste
6 to 8 tablespoons sugar

Chicha Morada

2 cups Chicha Morada (page 224), strained
3 to 4 tablespoons sugar, or more if your chicha morada isn’t very sweet

Dulce de Leche

2 cups whole milk, warmed
6 to 8 tablespoons Dulce de Leche (page 252)

1 Puree all of the ingredients in a blender. (Or, if making the chicha morada or dulce de leche, you can whisk the ingredients together in a stand mixer or bowl.) If your blender is too heavy to pour from, transfer the ice pop base to a liquid measuring cup and divide the filling among as many ice pop bags as you are making (a funnel helps).

2 Seal the ice pop bags with a twisty tie as close to the liquid as possible. Or twist the bag (remove the air) and tie the bag snugly. The less air in the bag, the better, so you get a symmetrical ice pop cylinder shape. Lay the ice pops flat on the bottom of a baking dish and freeze until very firm, at least 8 hours or overnight. To serve, remove the twisty tie or snip off the plastic knot.

Churn a marciano as you would ice cream, and you’ve basically got a cremolada. The texture is between a sorbet and a fruit slushy. In the summer, a cremoladeria menu is an advertisement for all of the fruits that grow in Peru: camu camu, cherimoya, guanábana, passion fruit, tamarind, and definitely lúcuma. Fruits are the most common flavors, but you can churn almost any ice pop base, or drinks like chicha morada or even a pisco sour. You could use an ice cream maker, but I’m loyal to the old hand-stirred days of cremoladas.

To make Cremoladas: Freeze the marciano base in ice cube trays or in a baking dish large enough so that it freezes in a layer no more than 1 inch thick. Puree the ice cubes (or break the ice into chunks) a little at a time in a high-powered, professional blender until smooth. (If you don’t have a high-powered blender, let the marciano base thaw for up to 15 minutes, until slightly softened.) Pour the slushy into a bowl and return it to the freezer, and stir every 15 minutes, until it thickens to the consistency of a thick slushy, 30 minutes to 1 hour.