N is for: Nectarine Boozy Bellini Popsicles

Rarely do I ever post what I consider “fails” on the blog. Part of this is because when I’m doing something blog-related, it’s usually pretty well-thought out and researched. That was not the case with these boozy bellini pops.


I was in a hurry and trying to get something done before I took off for 12 days so I sort of made this up on the fly, and it came back to bite me. A similar thing happened when I did the Irish Car Bomb jello shots. At the time, those seemed like a fail to me, but they are one of the most popular posts I’ve ever done. Go figure. 

With a little tweaking, I’m confident these pops would be perfect for a warm summer day at a barbeque or brunch, so I’m posting them anyways with a couple words of caution for my readers. Hopefully yours turn out better than mine.

My idea was to use the nectarines in my fridge and do a popsicle version of a bellini. Bellinis are like mimosas, except instead of orange juice, you use peach puree. Nectarines, apricots, peaches…any of these would work great, or you could try a combination of all three! I peeled and sliced them up and then sprinkled them with a little sugar. I think the sugar was probably unnecessary, so leave it or omit it, whatever you like. Blend it up and combine with champagne (which will take a bit as you must wait for the bubbles to die down, and then add a little more.) Pour them into molds and pop them in the freezer until frozen.

Now for the fail part. I am fully aware that you have to be careful with the percentage of alcohol when you are dealing with things like jello shots or frozen desserts. I remember when I made my Kahlua Oreo Pie, even just adding a smidge too much Kahlua makes all the difference. But again, I was in a hurry and didn’t think to research proper amounts, so I ended up doing about half nectarine, half champagne. (I like champagne, OK??!?!) They *mostly* froze. But much like the popsicles from my friend Kim’s rehearsal dinner, the bottoms broke off when trying to unmold them and they weren’t completely frozen, even after two days.

After the fact, I saw this article on Gilt Taste, which states this:
Remember, alcohol is going to affect the way your mixture freezes. For a softer, sorbet-like (and faster-melting) texture, your recipe can be up to 25 percent booze. (Beer and wine have less alcohol than liquor, so you can go somewhat higher with those.) An easy way to think about this is for every ¾ cup of fruit puree, juice, etc, you can add up to ¼ cup of alcoholic drink. 


Doh! So I would recommend about 75% nectarine puree and 25% champagne if you decide to recreate these at home. Also, I think actual popsicle sticks that extend further down the pop would also help in this situation.

Fortunately, one of the pops stayed in tact enough for me to snap a couple of photos. I’m guessing this one had a higher ratio of juice to champagne. But broken popsicle or not, I am happy to report that they tasted delicious and really hit the spot on a warm summer day. Do you have any tips for making boozy popsicles? If so, leave them in the comments section below.