It seems like everyone is obsessed with Outshine Fruit Bars, the inexplicably smooth popsicles studded with bits of whole fruit. I am particularly smitten with the lemon and lime varieties, which taste like perfect frosty lemonade on a stick.
I do, however, become annoyed as all heck when I encounter a processed food I cannot make better at home. Previous attempts to dupe these popsicles have been disappointing. The trouble with popsicles is that you end up with an ice block from which you have to suck out all of the juice. It’s fine when you’re five, but loses its appeal as an adult. How the heck are the Outshine guys doing it?
Gum. That’s the answer. More specifically, stabilizers like guar gum, agar, or gelatin. Before you castigate me for recommending “additives,” please remember each one is a natural food byproduct. Guar gum, for example, is just beans. I ordered some bean powder off the internet and started doing a deep dive, all in pursuit of a better pop, and I’m thrilled to share my findings with you. Here are three tips for making a fruit pop that has a deeply satisfying flavor and mouthfeel.
Start your popsicles with cold ingredients
My most successful fruit pops were made with frozen fruit, but to make lemonade, you need to melt sugar into lemon juice. I tried pouring the resulting warm syrup directly into the mold, thinking it would freeze just fine, but it didn’t. It cooled inconsistently, fracturing the popsicle. The ones I made with blended frozen fruit turned out fantastic and froze really quickly.
This makes sense. In large, commercial operations, they use super fast chilling systems to get the temperature down quickly, much more quickly than your home freezer is capable of. There’s also a side benefit to agitation when using guar gum, and though I don’t have hard science to back this up, I suspect using the blender helped. If you want to make a pop that requires a heated base, such as lemon or limeade, freeze it on its own, then use your blender to break it up into a slush.
Guar gum for the win
Guar gum—which, again, comes from beans—is a common thickening and stabilizing agent used in a wide variety of foods. It’s wildly good at its job, and more effective than other thickening and stabilizing agents (such as cornstarch and the like). It’s also naturally gluten-free, which is great because there is no reason for gluten to be in a popsicle.
Because it’s so effective, you don’t need a lot of it—just ¼ tablespoon of guar gum for every four cups of fruit. Sprinkle it in, then agitate it in a blender, which helps the guar gum get into solution and eliminates clumps.
Combine fruit puree and pieces for a better pop
I read a lot about using “fruit pulp” when conducting my research for these fruit pops, and that definitely made sense. The texture of whole fruit pieces in my pops was part of what appealed to me. To achieve this at home, pour most of the fruit you’re using into the blender and blend with sugar until you have a puree. Add your guar gum, then add your whole fruit and pulse it in the blender just enough to break it up a bit, but not puree it. Now you have fruit pulp.
How to make your fruit pops look profesh
Silicone popsicle molds do the heavy work here. They make it easy to pop out your pops one by one, and keep the popsicle stick solidly in place. I do not like popsicle molds that come with their own plastic stick bases, because I’m definitely going to lose one, and it ties up the base until I eat the popsicle. I wanted to be able to make a bunch of fruit pops and keep them in the freezer until I was ready to eat them.
Everything you need for perfect pops:
Once the pops are done, and they really only need a six-hour freeze, pop them out and transfer them to cello bags made specifically for popsicles. They can live in your freezer until you’re ready, like the boxed kind you buy from the store.
Perfect Strawberry Fruit Pops (makes six)
Ingredients:
16 ounces frozen strawberriesOne cup of white sugar¼ tablespoon of guar gumAdd 12 ounces of the berries to your blender, along with your sugar, and blend until you have a smooth puree. Sprinkle the guar gum on the puree and blend for 20 seconds. Now add the rest of your berries, and pulse for one second five or six times to break them up, but not puree them.
Immediately pour the mixture into your silicone mold and freeze. You want the mixture to be as cold as possible when it goes into the freezer, so don’t dawdle; have your mold ready to go as soon as you’re done blending.
After six hours, un-mold and eat or transfer cello bags and store them in the freezer.
