This Zesty, No-Bake Dessert Is Tangy, Creamy, and Completely Irresistible

Rising up in Ohio, I by no means had the nice fortune to strive a boli―a big Mexican ice pop encased in a transparent plastic bag—after I was a child. For me, chilly treats got here in a pint on the grocery retailer or from a Dairy Queen. However for my accomplice, who’s Mexican, Dairy Queen and comparable quick meals chains that peddled frozen desserts had been one thing particular. When he would ask for American soft-serve, his mother and father gave him a boli: a small let-down on the time, however now a nostalgic reminder of his childhood.

The place we now reside in steamy Mazatlán, Sinaloa, frozen treats are plentiful: there’s conventional nieve de garrafa, hand-churned ice lotions and sorbets with flavors like leche quemada (cooked milk), passionfruit, and candy corn; paletas (popsicles); and bolis, creamy milk- or fruity water-based ice pops frozen inside neat plastic luggage. This recipe is for considered one of my favourite milk bolis (often known as bolis de leche), key lime pie. It’s tangy, creamy, and candy, and tastes identical to the traditional pie. 

Making the bolis is comparatively easy: I course of entire milk, sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, and sugar in a blender. The condensed milk helps produce that traditional key lime pie taste, whereas the addition of  entire milk and cream cheese will increase the milk fats content material of the combination, which inhibits the formation of ice crystals and retains the feel clean and delicate. For the limes, I examined with each key limes and Persian limes and located that, when it comes to taste, they don’t seem to be that totally different. My speculation is that the frozen boli is so chilly that the slight taste distinction and the variation in acidity is not that noticeable. I recommend you utilize no matter is offered to you that’s of excellent high quality. Simply be certain to dial again the quantity of zest when you’re utilizing Persian limes in order that it doesn’t overwhelm the opposite flavors. 

One of the vital alluring elements of bolis is the thought and creativity that some individuals put into the expertise of consuming them. For ones flavored with jocote (a small, acidic fruit with a plum-like taste, typically often called ciruela), you may discover a stone with among the tart fruit nonetheless hooked up on the backside of your boli, good for chasing the sweetness. A mango boli could have a swirl of spicy pink chamoy sauce you can combine with the fruit or take pleasure in as a burst of depth on the finish. Then, there are milk bolis that reveal items of cookies or Gansitos, a chocolate-dipped snack cake, as you eat them.

For this recipe, I attempted to include some attention-grabbing textural components. My early makes an attempt to include small segments of key lime or candied lime slices fell flat: the previous had been too intense and the latter had been too giant and hard to chew. As an alternative, I settled on incorporating galletas Marías (crisp vanilla cookies that may be present in Latin markets), damaged into numerous sizes, and lime zest. To get the cookie’s taste into the boli, I mix just a few cookies on the finish, together with the zest. Then, for bigger cookie chunks and extra texture, I like so as to add damaged up galletas Marías immediately to every boli bag. The result’s an ice cream-like deal with with pockets of tender, cream-soaked cookies.

When it’s time to freeze the bolis, you’ll want plastic boli luggage. Trying to find “boli luggage” or “ice pop luggage” will flip up various choices you may order on-line, however it’s price checking your native Latin grocery store first. I used 2 3/4- by 10-inch luggage, which is an ordinary boli measurement. Upon getting the luggage, then comes the difficult half: getting the viscous combination right into a flimsy plastic bag. The strategy that works greatest for me is to prop the boli bag up in a cup, maintain the mouth of the bag open with one hand, and really slowly pour within the combination with the opposite hand. The bag will settle and transfer barely because it fills up, and pouring slowly means you may cease the circulation if the bag falls over or closes iin on itself. Fill every bag up about midway, then gently mush the underside of the bag round in order that the bigger cookie chunks incorporate into the combo and aren’t left dry on the backside, pinch the bag shut on the fill stage to get the air out, and tie a fast overhand knot to seal it off.

As soon as your bolis are frozen, chunk or reduce off a nook of a boli bag and dig in. You might need to softly chunk by way of the bag to extract the primary bits of the boli, however because it softens, you can begin to squeeze it out of the bag. If you happen to’re new to bolis, it will take a little bit experimentation, however you may determine it out.

August 2022

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