Why store-bought popsicles are so easy to bite through, but home-made ice-cube tray popsicles are hard as rocks. (Chemistry? Physics?)
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The store popsicles are pretty much solid slush, made from many tiny ice crystals. I don’t know if they grind and compress into shape a larger block of ice, or is it flash freezing of concentrate (the faster you freeze something, the more smaller crystals you create), but it’s not really relevant.
Your home made popsicle will literally be solid ice. Some cheap commercial posicles are too, btw.
It’s the sugar. As the sugary solution freezes, the growing ice crystals exclude sugar from their crystal structure, meaning it gets more and more concentrated in the not-yet-frozen liquid. As the concentration of sugar goes up, the freezing point decreases, so, at ordinary freezer temperatures, the process eventually stops, leaving a network of ice crystals with sugary liquid in the interstices; essentially a firm slush. Thus, it’s much less mechanically strong than solid ice, and easy to bite through. If you chilled the popsicle to liquid nitrogen temperatures, it would all be frozen, and very hard.
Biochemist here. Most commercial popsicles use High Fructose Corn Syrup and guar gum. The HFCS is the sugar and it is in liquid form and does not form crystals when it freezes and the guar gum mixes with the water and has the same effect. It makes for a smoother popsicle that melts more uniformly and more slowly than a sugar water mix…
edit[typo]
A lot of wrong answers and half wrong answers in here. It’s the freezing method. If you bite into a cheap popsicle you will find it is also hard. It’s because of the freezing time and method.
High quality popsicles are frozen much faster resulting in a different crystal structure that is easier to eat. This is done in a subzero freezer with airflow and many times a metal mold. The ones at home are plastic which is an insulator and your freezer isn’t actually that cold. Metal molds and sub zero temp freeze it faster and from all directions.
There are ways to make a more texture acceptable treat without these and some of the other posters who were half wrong described them. Commercial popsicles are just frozen really fast in metal. The get them out with blowtorches on the molds in some place, it’s metal af.
Blend lettuce into your popsicle mix. Tastes like nothing, and the extra fiber that lets your popsicle get gritty like those Big Stick popsicles, instead of a block of ice. For creamy popsicles, oatmilk can help with that, too.
This video covers both the ingredient and freezing method aspects of it and talks about what steps you can take to replicate it at home. Note that their use of liquid nitrogen is unnecessary and he notes that.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6LvqK3cY0Q&ab_channel=ChefSteps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6LvqK3cY0Q&ab_channel=ChefSteps)
Not sure cause you didn’t say it, but if you’re looking to achieve softer popsicles, use honey in place of some of the sugar.
I think the rate at which you are able to freeze the liquid has at least part of the reason in play. The slower the freeze the larger the crystal the more rapid the freeze the finer the crystal and the easier to “bite” into
Random observation: I had a fla-vor-ice type popsicle once that had unfrozen at some point and then refroze. The crystal structure of the popsicle had completely changed and the popsicle seemed to be made up of delicate little seperate shards instead of one big piece of ice. It was the best popsicle I ever had, and wasn’t even a flavor that I liked that much.
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