Orange Mango Cream Ice Pops

This one was filled a little skimpy. It's frozen.

Since I made key lime pie earlier, I had some sweetened condensed milk left over. What to do with that little bitty condensed milk? Hmm... popsicles? Sure, the girls would like them and I've always wanted to try to make my own. With that in mind, I was trying to find a small size popsicle mold, but no luck, they were all kind of big for preschoolers. So I bought some plastic shot glasses and 4 inch bamboo skewers. Now let's make the ice pops.

5 ounce sweetened condensed milk*
1 cup Orange mango juice
1 teaspoon lime or lemon juice
10 one ounce plastic shot glasses
10 four inch bamboo skewers
10 two inch square foil pieces

* The amount is an estimate since that's how much I had left of the condensed milk. It was a little beneath halfway mark between 1/2 cup and 2/3 cup.

This is what it looks like when holding the bamboo skewer.

Mix the ingredients well, a creamy yellow mixture. Pour it evenly into the shot glasses, cover them with the top with foil, pierce the foil with the bamboo skewers in the middle. Put them in the freezer overnight or until firm.

The portion was perfect for after meal dessert for a young child. When the girls were eating my ice pops, they said: "Mommy, the kind that the company made is not as good as yours." We buy the non-creamy fruit popsicle, so the creaminess is not there. Still, it's hard not to feel accomplished somewhat after hearing that from your kids, wouldn't you say?

With the success of the first try, maybe I'll venture out to try some other flavors.

By the way, the plastic container is easy to crack if you aren't careful when squeezing it to wiggle the ice pop out, after it's thawed a bit. I know 'cause I've cracked 3 so far. I think a paper form of the container would be more ideal, but it might be hard to find it in such a small size. Well, good luck with your endeavor and wish you success!

Chinese Pumpkin Cake

I made a pumpkin pie a couple weeks ago. The inevitability of the pumpkin leftover going bad has loomed over my head ever since, but I kept forgetting to do something about it. Of course, the container sitting at the back of the fridge didn't help me to remember it either. Today, I finally remember to make some Chinese pumpkin cake.

This is part of the dough. Remembered to take a picture halfway.

1 cup mashed pumpkin
1 cup glutinous rice flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar
Red bean paste for filling
Extra flour for rolling
Oil for frying

Frying on the bottom sides.

Mix the pumpkin, flour and sugar well together to form a stretchy dough. Add a little water if it gets dry. Put hands on the extra flour so when your hands roll the dough, it won't get sticky. Form a dough ball with a generous inch diameter. Make an indentation in the middle while holding it in one hand, scoop some red bean paste in there, say 1 to 1&1/2 teaspoons full depending how sweet you want it to be. Pull the edges of the dough to wrap the filling inside, make sure no filling is showing. Apply more flour if it gets sticky to the hands (you don't want that, it'll be a sticky mess). Flatten it to a small round shape. The batch makes about 15 little cakes.

Heat oil in the pan, fry each side of the cakes for a few minutes until they are golden brown. Drain the oil off the cakes a bit on a paper towel. Let them cool. Voila! They are ready to eat. Good stuff!

I used cashew butter as filling for some and the rest was the traditional red bean paste. My family members prefer the bean paste ones. I think it's because they are sweeter than the cashew butter ones. I like both kinds. I can imagine experimenting with other food as fillings, sweet or savory, creamy or crunchy, whatever floats your boat. It might turn out to be a pleasant surprise.

Nicely browned and ready to be eaten.