Why are my home made ice lollies always rubbish?

[TheLemur]

I've tried:

squash & water
juice
juice & water
innocent smoothie
homemade smoothie (fruit & fromage frais)
fromage frais/milkshake powder

They are always horrible! The squash/water based ones are just like solid ice bergs, not nice soft slushy ice like from the ice cream man

The innocent smoothie ones are OK on the outside but when you get into the middle the ice is really spikey and painful to eat

Is my freezer on too cold or something? (not that I know how to change it)

Anything with fromage frais in just tastes curdled

Help please!

When I was a kid we regularily had angel delight frozen, that always when down a treat! I think the spiky-ness is inevitable though?

Its because your domestic freezer doesn't freeze fast enough. Slower freezing = bigger ice crystals, fast freezing = smaller crystals.

AFAIK the only thing you can do is freeze the juice/whatever in a plastic tub, then when it is just frozen take it out and put it in the food processor (to break up the crystals) then put the ice cold mix into the lolly moulds and freeze. The crystals should be smaller. Its a faff though.

Ah so it's not just me then! I'll try the angel delight thanks but not sure I can be bothered with food processing lollies.... looks like Tesco ready made might be the best bet

Actually what about those ready made ones that you buy off the shelf ie: not out of the freezer.... do you think they would freeze funny too or do they put checmicals or something in them to make the ice form nicely?

They are bad for spiky-ness if you mean those litte ones in plastic tubing. But they are very tasty! Jubilee lollies (if thats what they're called now, in triangular cartons) are good too.

Oo I'm going to buy some tomorrow now!

Do you mean Jubbly? I got some of those in Tesco last night to try

It just baffles me that there are products like this with great reviews so someone out there must have cracked this?!

Are they called Jubbly?! I've always called them Jubilee, I blame my Mum! But yes I do, and they are really nice. They have a tendency to have freeze so that the inside is really concentrated in the taste and they do taste yummy!

I really want to get some lolly molds now! May have too

Pimms & Lemonade lolly are nice. Too nice to share IMHO

Homemade mini milks: 500ml of milk, a couple of teaspons of caster sugar and vanilla extract to taste. Stir well and freeze. Big hit in our house!