Mango Coconut Popsicles with a hint of Lime
The other day I went to the grocery store for tortillas and came home with a coconut.
It happens to the best of us.
The coconut cost $1.50 and had a nice sloshy heft to it with what seemed like a liberal amount of luscious coconut water. Sold!
Challenge #1: Opening it. Thank goodness my girlfriend got all proprietary about this feat. All I had to do was hand her a hammer and a flat-head screwdriver and stand back to watch.
That’s not quite true; I also had to race over with a wide-mouth tumbler glass to catch all the coconut water once we’d punctured two of the three bowling-ball-like soft spots from the coconut stem.
Mission accomplished!
We didn’t save the coconut water for later, or use it in any fancy recipes. We just drank it all right then and there. We didn’t even add ice. (Or take photos.)
Challenge #2: Scraping out the coconut flesh.
This task is much, much easier with young (green) coconuts. With a young coconut, you can hack open the top, sip the water up through a straw, and use the hacked-off coconut lid itself (or a spoon) to scrape the soft coconut fruit free from the shell.
Not so with dry brown (old?) coconuts. Honestly, I felt satisfied, having gotten my money’s worth just from drinking the coconut water. But of course we weren’t going to give up that easily and toss the rest without even trying.
It turns out my girlfriend was not planning to give up at all. She somehow MacGyver-ed every inch (and millimeter) of coconut flesh away from the shell using a combination of the hammer, the screwdriver, a knife, a fork, and a spoon. (Then she had to go sit down to rest.)
That’s when I stepped in, using a vegetable peeler to trim the stubborn brown bits of coconut shell off of each little hunk of white coconut. Next, I used the shredding function on my food processor to grate the coconut flesh. One (little) coconut yielded 3 whole cups! Whoa.
Second spontaneous mission accomplished!
I froze half of the shredded coconut, and used a fourth of it to make these simple, scrumptious popsicles.*
Mango and coconut go so well together, I like to think of them as great friends. (You know, if they were animate, sentient beings…) And when their good friend lime stops by to join in, wonderful things happen.
These are actually more like frozen fruit bars than popsicles, since I didn’t include much liquid beyond the natural juiciness of the mango and the lime– just a few tablespoons of lemonade (though I’m sure that water, milk, or coconut milk would also do the trick). I probably could have called this recipe “frozen coconut & lime-flavored mango on a stick.”
One of my friends used to buy bags of frozen mango just to eat– while still frozen. These icy fruit bars take the same idea to a whole new level of awesome. And the coconut balances out the sour notes of lime and adds a chewy richness to the frozen treats.
Best $1.50 I’ve spent in ages.
*I used the remaining fourth of it for a separate recipe, coming soon!
RECIPE:
Mango Coconut Popsicles with a hint of Lime
(Makes 3 popsicles)
Ingredients:
~ 1 mango, peeled and chopped
~ ½ cup grated coconut
~ ½ tsp. brown sugar
~ juice of ½ a lime, or to taste
~ several Tbsp. of lemonade, water, milk, or coconut milk (I used lemonade.)
How to make it:
1. Use a small saucepan to heat up the mango. Add lime juice and brown sugar, and stir to dissolve the brown sugar. Mash the mango to your desired consistency using a fork or a potato masher.
2. Add the shredded coconut and cook for an additional minute or so.
3. Let cool, then add a bit of lemonade, water, milk, or coconut milk. Use this extra liquid to add flavor and/or to fill out the popsicle molds.
4. Spoon fruit mixture into popsicle molds and freeze until solid. Enjoy!
Related recipe posts:
> Thai Iced Tea Popsicles
> Apricot Mango Galette (with Apricot Almond and Strawberry Galette recipes)
> Ginger Coconut Rice
Trackbacks
- South Indian Spicy Coconut Chutney « spontaneous tomato
- Rhubarb Birthday Galette « spontaneous tomato
- South Indian Green Bean Curry with Shredded Coconut « spontaneous tomato
- Chayote Mango Salad with Avocado « spontaneous tomato
- Zesty Lemon Lime Bars « spontaneous tomato
- Black Sesame Coconut Milk Ice Cream | spontaneous tomato
- Cinnamon Coffee Ice Cream | spontaneous tomato
- Lychee Mojitos | spontaneous tomato
spontaneous tomato 
This sounds so delicious! Mango and coconut are two of my favorite flavors! I’ll have to try this.
Thanks! Yes, it’s definitely worth a try. It only makes three popsicles since they’re basically all fruit, but that’s what makes them so good!
Mmm mango and coconut? I think this could just taste incredible :)
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Yep, a flavor combination that I truly love. (I’m still trying to master a recipe for the Thai dessert mango with coconut sticky rice…)
This looks and sounds scrumptious! I think I’ll try it out soon!
Thanks; I hope you like it! :)
Sounds like such amazingly tasty popsicles! Fantastic.
Yep, they looked pretty enough, and then I was more than pleasantly surprised by how they tasted too!
Yum! Do you have a Flor de Michoacan paleteria there? This could be one of their flavors (and there are probably 100 others, all amazing). SO GOOD!
No, I’ve never heard of that place. (And I just googled it, hoping there’d be one in LA, where I’m going this weekend, but unfortunately there isn’t…) Guess I’ll just have to keep coming up with my own paletas!
I’m also curious to hear some of your favorite flavors of theirs… or you could just reproduce some of them on your blog!
I guess they have different names, try googling “los angeles paleteria”–http://www.la-michoacana.com/contactus.html, http://www.yelp.com/biz/paleteria-la-michoacana-los-angeles, etc. Worth seeking out! Ok, some favorite flavors: coconut, lime, mango and chile, pineapple and chile, blackberry, guava, pico de gallo! :)
Will do; thank you! And omg, pico de gallo flavored paletas?! I love pico de gallo, but if I only got to try out a single flavor, I wouldn’t pick that one… The other flavors I can totally see would taste amazing, especially mango and chile.
Thanks for the great recipe! We just got some of these popsicle molds at a garage sale and have tried a few different combinations. This is on the list now.
Perfect! I hope you enjoy them!
I just bought Popsicle molds last week and can’t wait to create some recipes! Those look fab…thanks for the inspiration!
Yay, hope you get a chance to try these out soon!
Mmm…very yummy and healthy!
Yes, I didn’t even really think about how these are healthy (and vegan) until after I’d made them, but it’s definitely healthier to use real frozen fruit compared to my usual popsicle go-to of frozen juice or lemonade, which is more like fruit, added sugar, and water.
That’s not bad at all- For that price, I probably would have come home with about a half dozen coconuts! Especially now, since I have this recipe floating around in my head… I guess I’ll have to take a peek at what they’re selling for next time I’m out. ;)
Yeah, it was a great deal! They were on sale, but the original price wasn’t much more than that. I didn’t buy more than one because I knew it’d be a major pain to scrape out all of the coconut flesh (and I was right– I wouldn’t want to deal with more than one coconut in a single day). But now I’ve reminded myself that, every once in a while, it’s totally possible and worth it!
Lovely & tasty popsicles: so refreshing too! :)
The day you come back with clothes from the grocery store and forget what you went for is the day you are in trouble. LOL!
There is nothing tastier than a fresh coconut flesh. We grew up eating them in plenty during the summer season but it’s a rarity here in Newfoundland. I hear coconut ice cream is ‘hot’ stuff in the south east. Your’s look reachable. :)
I agree, I absolutely love the taste of fresh coconut. (And I love coconut ice cream too, although it’s hard to find one that really tastes like fresh coconut… so these popsicles will have to do for now!)
I already can’t wait for summertime to come around so I can make these! Yummo!
Oh oops, I’m always neglecting blog readers in the southern hemisphere by trying to make seasonal recipes and post them in-season. Sorryyyy! Hope you get a patch of warm weather and the chance to buy some fresh mangoes sometime even before it’s truly summer!
I’ve got some Mango Greek Yogurt…I wonder if I could do an iteration of this using that….hmmmmmm.
Yes, I’m sure that’d be great! I actually just saw a blog post– can’t remember where now, sadly– for mango lassi popsicles that used mango + Greek yogurt. (I thought that was even more genius than my mango lassi muffins recipe…)