Frozen juice or frozen punch freeze up as a solid block of ice. I want them to be more like a sorbet or gelato, though still solid enough to hold the shape.
How might I make them softer? Either aerated, or polycrystalline without having to "do anything" while it's in the freezer?
One thought is to somehow make it more syrupy so it will hold air long enough to stay there while freezing. Gelatin comes to mind, but I wonder if something better is advised?
The main factors are a gelling agent, alcohol, sugar and air/stirring.
Sugars may decrease the freezig point - add enough sugar and your ice remains soft-ish. Unfortunately this can mean your ice gets too sweet. So instead of using plain sugar, add some "inverted sugar": glucose syrup (aka corn syrup), which stays runny and doesn't crystalize.
You could even take it up a notch and use trehalose, which is basically two linked glucose molecules. It is used in ice-cream making to inhibit the formation of ice crystals. It tastes also less sweet than regular sugar, allowing for less sweet ice cream. Find an award-winning sample recipe here (further down). And if you really must have some hard science, a study on the use of trehalose in ice cream.
Alcohol has a low freezing point. But apart from the question whether you want to use it at all, you should note that you need a certain amount of ethanol to have a noticeable effect - high-proof alcohol and yes, you will taste it.
Glycerine (a sugar alcohol) helps keep ice cream soft.
Likewise the addition of gelling agents may inhibit the formation of ice crystals - locust bean gum is often used to replace eggs in custard-based ice cream and agar agar and pectin may serve a simmilar purpose.
And finally you can mechanically avoid / hinder the formation of large ice crystals by churning your juice first and freezing the slush instead of pouring the juice straight in the molds. The ice will still be rather hard, but not as much of a "solid icicle", especially if combined with one of the additives above.
I love to make popsicles out of store bought yogurt. They stay creamy and are delicious in any yogurt flavor.
I have two tips that will make your Popsicles soft and perfectly Quiescently frozen treats every time!
First, pre-freeze some of your ingredients or get them all soft frozen and then blend them into a pourable slush before putting in the popsicle molds.
PLUS the addition of a little bit of natural guar gum powder while you’re blending all ingredients into a slush.
This makes the perfect consistency soft, beautifully textured frozen treats!!
A great choice for that is adding alcohol, as long as everybody eating them can also imbibe. Since pure alcohol resists freezing until it's as cold as -114°C (-173.2°F), it doesn't take a whole lot of alcohol to inhibit popsicles from freezing hard. A great list of recipes for use as a guide can be found here.
Simply adjusting (increasing) the sugar level will do it, and/or other things that interfere with crystal formation, such as pectin (either use some jelly/jam in making the mixture, or add pectin sold for making jelly/jam to your mixture.)
I'd encourage doing some practical tests where you add known amounts of sugar to your mixture until you find a level that works for the texture you want. If your juice label tells you how much sugar it has per volume, try adding sufficient sugar to have 30g/100ml as a "typical known to work" level - but you may want to aim higher or lower based on personal preference.
I know exactly what you mean,not like an ice cube, more scrunchy that you can bite in to, there are 15g of sugar in just one! my guess is that it's mostly that and possibly fast freezing with a liquid gas, like nitrogen, plenty of sugar and press the fast freeze button on your freezer and make them tomorrow, is as near as you will get.
If you have rock hard pops, just let them set out for a few minutes. They will develop desired texture.
