Pomegranate & passionfruit icy pops - ITB february 2009

Pomegranate might be one of the fruit that I least have contact with. I actually quite like the taste, I just don't really like the gritty texture of the seeds. One thing I like the most from participating in these food blogging events are the chance to try to cook with new ingredients and try new recipes.

I first discovered ITB (In The Bag) event during one of those blog surfing. What makes this event even better is that it requires minimal commitment. I decided to give it a try this month since I'm in such a baking frenzy mode lately. This month's ingredients are pomegranate, passion fruit and white chocolate in honour of st. Valentine. I think I'm more excited about the chance to cook with pomegranate more than anything else. I hit the internet in no time. I don't have a lot of cook books, so I always turn to the online world for recipes. It's not that I have something against cook books, but it's just that I always find myself not knowing which one to buy, and if I end up buying one, it seems that it will only going to sit pretty on the shelf collecting dust rather than accompanying me at the kitchen. But i'm happy to say that after I start this blog, I'm more inspired to try new recipes than ever before. Mr. Amazon just delivered me 4 new cookbooks yesterday, and 2 of them are by Dorie Greenspan =). Don't be surprised if you see me doing a lot of her cakes in the near future.



Back to the ITB event.. I found some interesting salad recipes that uses pomegranate in them, but I'm pretty sure passion fruit and white chocolate won't go well with that. Eventhough you don't necessarily have to use all the ingredients, but I want to find something that can incorporate all of them. In this case, I think something sweet is the most appropriate. Then I came accross this icy pop recipe. It's perfect, quite simple to make and the yellow and red colour from the fruits will make one pretty icy treat. Enrobing the icy pop in white chocolate makes a nice touch to this dessert. You can say it's the tropical-white chocolate version of Magnum. I left some plain without the white chocolate. I actually prefer it like this, light and fresh.. the white chocolate tends to add a slight richness to it.


P.S: I got one more good news.. I finally found my charger!! turns out that I did leave it at my friend's place on new year's eve. I asked him to look for me coz that was the last time I used it, but he said he couldn't find it. M and I stayed over at his place last night after too many hours from playing Wii and there it was, sitting pretty beside the TV, still plugged in where I last used it. I guess he lied when he said "I've looked everywhere for it", he's just plain lazy!! hopefully this will cure my bad habit of leaving things everywhere..



Pomegranate & Passion Fruit Icy Pops
Adapted from POM wonderful recipes (http://www.pomwonderful.com/)

Pomegranate:
3/4 cup of pomegranate juice (from 2 large pomegranate)
1-2 ripe bananas

Passionfruit:
3/4 cup of passionfruit juice (from 4-5 passionfruit)
1-2 ripe bananas

Simple syrup:
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of sugar

250g of white chocolate for coating

Prepare the simple syrup by boiling water and sugar in a heavy based pan. Set aside and let cool to room temperature. Blend the passion fruit and banana together until smooth, put in one bowl. Do the same with the pomegranate. Add about half of the syrup to the pomegranate juice and the other half to the passionfruit juice. Adjust the portion as you like, your passion fruit may need more sugar than the pomegranate, as it usually more sour. prepare moulds or plastic cups and fill about 1 tbs of pomegranate juice. put in the freeze till it slightly hardens. Add 1 tbs of passion fruit juice and return to freezer to harden again. when it's still quite soft in the middle but hard enough to keep the popsicle steady, insert the popsicle. You can create any pattern you want, you may want to create stripes, marble effect, etc. When it's frozen completely and you have reached the last layer, melt and temper your white chocolate. Dip the icy pops and let the excess drip. The chocolate usually will set straight away since the icy pops are cold.