Buko salad Ice candy is a sweet creamy coconut fruit salad turned into a frozen delicious treat. Buko salad is a well known Filipino dessert that makes use of shredded young coconut, a mixture of canned fruits or fruit cocktail that’s then mixed together with a creamy concoction of evaporated milk and condensed milk. Its then made into ice candy by boiling it into water to make a smooth creamy concoction with a little cassava flour to thicken and smoothen the texture. Frozen into a nicely ready to go package overnight and enjoyed any time of the day the next.

What is a Buko Salad?

Buko Salad is a salad made of a combination of a young grated coconut, fruit cocktail that’s usually a mix of nata de cococ, pineapple, sugar palm, cherries and cream made of condensed milk, evaporated milk, and sugar as needed. There are even some versions of the buko salad with keso or cream cheese for a little sharp taste, some even adding fruits like lychee; apple and any other additions of favorite sweetened fruit some even add canned corn. Some varieties also include Buko melon which is buko salad with bite sides cantaloupes instead of fruit salad, Buko pandan which is not only a popular drink but is sometime made as a buko salad variant made of green agar agar that has pandan flavoring, and Lamaw which is more popular in farming regions similar to the buko salad without the fruit cocktail that’s replaced with biscuits or saltines or even graham crackers, these may also include orange flavored soft drinks served in a halved coconut shells. All in all the Buko Salad is a dessert you can be sure to find in holidays like Christmas and new years, or small gathering and events like birthdays and fiestas. Its quick and simple to prepare that you’d only need to strain and mix the ingredients together to be chilled in the fridge for a few hours to overnight till it gets thick and creamy similar to a fruit salad, some even freeze them to give it an ice cream like texture.

Buko salad has been part of the Filipino food culture that makes you reminisce of gathering with loved ones and memorable holiday parties and occasions that you’ll fondly look back on.

What’s an Ice Candy and why is it a popular summer treat?

Ice candy is a Filipino frozen popsicle that’s sold in a long plastic bag instead of a popsicle stick. These are a popular summer dessert usually sold in neighborhoods by kids or street vendors like sorbeteros, and sari-sari stores. Ice candy is a mixture of milk or evaporated milk, condensed milk or sugar for sweetness, continuously stirred with cassava flour over medium heat to make it thick and not icy when the ice candy hardens. There are only a few ingredients needed to make an ice candy, water, cassava flour, flavoring like chocolate, ube, mango and any choice of powdered or liquid flavoring, sugar or condensed milk for sweetness. This frozen refresher can also be made by using soft drinks, a vegetable and fruit blend, or the more popularly healthier version of using fruits like oranges, melon, papaya, jack fruit, and for the person who can take it, durian. With such an easy recipe, you can find a long list of ice candy flavors that’s been tried and tested and sold as an ice candy you can easily find being sold by neighbors and even made at home with kids to bite onto to cool off from the summer heat.

Perfect for summer days after dinner nights when you want a nice icy dessert to round up the day. Perfect for the afternoon when you need to cool off and have that short break!