Recipe for Snow Cones

Okay, they're not called snow cones here, they're called nieves or raspados, but they're basically the same principle as a snow cone: shaved ice and yummy syrup. Well, snow cone syrup isn't known for its yumminess in the US, but here in Mexico, raspados are made with fresh fruit and they're delicious.

I got lucky and found an ice scraper at the tionges in Tonala for $30 pesos (that's about $2.25 US), so I've been wanting to make raspados for a while. I finally got down and dirty in the kitchen today.

Only one problem, all the recipes I could find were in Spanish. Now, my day to day Spanish is getting pretty good--it should be after living in "real" Mexico for 3 months. But following a recipe in another language is a whole other kind of challenge. For example, what does deshacerla mean? Google translate helps, but it's not perfect. Factor in the difference in units of measurement and the need to substitute ingredients and reduce the quantity, and the whole process gets a little challenging. But I've always loved a good challenge.

Here's the original recipe that I found for raspados de coco:

Hierve 3 litros de agua por 5 minutos.Agrega 6 tazas de azúcar y mueve para deshacerla.Vacía 4 tazas de leche en polvo con 1 taza de fécula de maíz, mueve.Agrega 2 kg de coco rallado y 2 latas de leche condensada.Cocina 15 minutos y deja enfriar y espesar.

Here's the recipe I ended up making:
1 liter water
1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup corn starch
200 grams toasted grated coconut + 1 cup diced fresh young coconut
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Boil the water and turn the heat to low; dissolve the sugar (I cut the original recipe's sugar in half and it's still very sweet).  Mix the powdered milk and corn starch together and add to the hot water mixture, stirring to dissolve. Add the coconut and condensed milk, and cook over low heat for approximately 15 minutes. When I was done, my mixture was very thick, so I ended up adding another cup of water just before I turned off the heat.

Tomorrow the ice will be frozen, so I'll post pictures of my raspados de coco and give an update on how they tasted.