Behind the Scenes with King of Pops
Earlier this summer, I chatted with the team behind King of Pops here in Richmond and we kicked around some ideas for a pop flavor with a vegetable twist. They’d been pondering a berry + rhubarb combination, and the wheels started turning!
Last week I had a chance to go behind the scenes and see how these new pop flavors get made! As you can imagine, there was quite a bit of taste testing along the way. No complaints here!
First off, if you’re not in Richmond, you can also find King of Pops up in Nashville, Atlanta, Athens, Savannah, Charleston, Greenville, & Charlotte. (So if you’re taking a trip around the east coast, you might spot one of their rainbow umbrellas!) I’ve been a fan of their chocolate sea salt pops for years, but King of Pops does more than just dream up delicious flavors of desserts. They’re spreading happiness across their local communities. Part of that is working with local farms to source ingredients but the other part is just getting involved in their cities. King of Pops here in Richmond hosts a free weekly yoga class in the park. How cool is that?! Their self-proclaimed purpose is “to create Unexpected Moments of Happiness.” Now that’s a mission I can get behind!
Most of their pops are made with just a few simple ingredients. This particular batch was blackberries (from Agriberry Farms, a local farm not far from Richmond!) rhubarb, sugar, lime, and salt. Simple, but such a delicious combination!
When I arrived at the shop, they’d prepped the rhubarb by cooking it down with a little sugar and lemon juice. A quick spin with the largest immersion blender I’ve ever seen whipped the rhubarb into velvety perfection. We then blended up the blackberries with a little sugar, and started the process of adding rhubarb, tasting, and repeating.
To bring out a little more of the fruity flavors, we added a few pinches of salt and a little lime juice to make the flavors pop.
Tasting after tasting until we discovered the perfect flavor balance!
Once we settled on the final combination, we poured the liquid into frozen molds, added in the sticks, and within about 30 minutes, the first batch was ready to go!
The flavor combination of the blackberry and rhubarb was awesome and you can’t beat that gorgeous color! I even got to help slip this first batch into the bags!
If you’re around Richmond, keep an eye out for this flavor! And if you’re at King of Pop’s yoga on Tuesday evening, come find me! I’ll be there on my purple yoga mat!
If you don’t have a King of Pops nearby but you’re craving some frozen treats, you can try this simple frozen pop hack or this 2 ingredient mango fro-yo. But if you have a King of Pops near by, you should swing by and try out their newest flavors!
This sounds like so much fun… and super yummy! I love making my own popsicles.
I’ve never heard of King of Pops but would love to try it. Maybe sometime when I’m traveling.
How cool! I’ve never heard of this place, but it sounds really good. Maybe I’ll stop by the next time I pass through Richmond! Kudos to you for helping them develop a new flavor! What a fun experience!
Oh wow! This looks like a great place. We don’t have one here in Florida… will have to try it next time I’m up North.
My sister lives in Richmond! I’m going to send her this post now; I bet she’d be totally into this place.
Looks like it was such a fun time! Love learning about the behind the scenes of tasty treats!
Mint strawberry cucumbers
Ooh wow I’ve never heard of them, but that’s so cool that they used real fruit! My favorite would probably be some sort of chocolatey peanut butter flavor.
I’m so happy to hear that they use REAL ingredients instead of a syrup. Very cool! I’m not a fan of fruit juice popsicles (in general) but I keep meaning to try one of their creamier versions.
I’ve never heard of king of pops! I love how fresh and simple they are wish I lived closer