We’re a bit of over per week into 2025 now.
How are these resolutions going?
As a result of regardless of your reply, I’ve bought a spot for you.
“You might be good right here,” I remarked to my pal as we sat at Morelia Gourmand Paletas, a connoisseur store contained in the Florida Mall. We hadn’t but crossed into the brand new 12 months on the time, however we had been projecting. I held the stick of a no-sugar-added pineapple mint paleta in a single hand, cellphone cam within the different.
“However, why?!” she mentioned again.
We laughed like supervillains.
As a result of — though the fruity pop was refreshing and scrumptious, sweeter than anticipated and with a wealthy, near-creamy texture as a consequence of its sorbet base — there was additionally a trio of temptations earlier than us on the desk. Creamy, chocolate-coated, caramel-filled and nut- and cookie-crusted calorie criminals that might simply upend your new-year consuming plans earlier than an oz of progress may very well be made.
So, I ask you: how good — or dangerous — do you wanna be?
If the reply is excellent, you’ll be able to persist with the pineapple mint or maybe the passionfruit sorbet bars. Neither has added sugar. And each clock in, as do all of the paletas within the store, at $5.99 apiece.
One other good factor: these don’t soften shortly. Which is very good if you wish to linger over the expertise. And in my time spent right here, I’ve seen that most individuals who are available, do.
It’s a part of the philosophy of Morelia co-founder Alex Kassab, who, in a 2020 piece by South Florida Enterprise & Wealth, mentioned the model’s secret ingredient was the expertise it created for the visitors.
The catchy idea — Decide it. Dip it. High it. — invitations clients to embark on a luxe journey that’s sensory overload even earlier than the deal with hits your (presumably edible) plate.
Except you’re being good.
Which means you’re choosing it (and by “it,” I imply a fruity paleta, the “goodest” of which haven’t any added sugar) and feeling good about your selection whilst you get pleasure from a frozen deal with. Wanna be a bit of dangerous? Take a mango pop and dip it in “Miguelito,” a spicy sugar, for one thing like a mangonada expertise.
Mango insanity, Orlando-style! 5 frosty spots for a mangonada
From right here, it will get exponentially “badder” till you’re my companion and me: A girl who simply got here from Zumba class and one other who was the satan on her shoulder (lured right here like a witch from a fairy story) with what was assuredly hundreds of energy of paletas on the desk.
I’m not dangerous, you understand. I’m simply drawn that approach.
Badder nonetheless had been the cartoon-colorful contenders: a Greek yogurt and berries paleta dipped in Belgian darkish chocolate and topped with slivered almonds, a dulce de leche paleta crammed with extra dulce de leche and dipped in much more dulce de leche with crunchy hazelnut topping and a Sicilian pistachio paleta, dipped in white chocolate and coated in crushed pistachio. Every had a splendidly decadent, gelato-like really feel.
The primary was a delight for its true yogurt taste, only a tad bitter with tart berries and a decadent creamy texture. In opposition to the bittersweet darkish chocolate with the feel of the almonds? A dream.
The second was caramel overload in the easiest way attainable, wealthy and buttery, the hazelnut cookie crumble topping an ideal accent.
And that pistachio. With a veritable bark of pistachios exterior. For me, this expertise surpasses even the Dubai chocolate bar expertise, with nothing vying for taste supremacy over pistachio-beyond taste and unbelievable contrasting cream and crunch.
Morelia Paletas started as a little bit of an obsession for a gaggle of pals dwelling in Brazil again in 2013, a time when the corporate’s founders say paletas had been having a little bit of a second in South America. Finally, their love for the deal with grew into residence experimentation and at last, a enterprise thought.
Although some meals historians have written that their origin dates again to the time of Mexico’s earliest civilizations, trendy paletas had been born within the state of Michoacán within the Nineteen Forties, when an area household started making them with the issues that they had available — primarily recent fruits, which had been chopped and blended in several methods, creating some attention-grabbing textures. Not surprisingly, these frosty treats caught on. And actually, you’ll discover them in each Mexican grocery shops and different locations right here on the town.
Since opening its first South Florida store in Miami in 2016, Morelia’s universe has expanded into six different states and has franchise alternatives. And whereas I don’t have that form of scratch mendacity round, a visit to their Florida Mall location was a neat showcase of a killer thought that folks appear to flip for.
Households flitted in from the mall and the three,000-square-foot Play Park simply exterior (good placement). And so if in case you have young children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews you may wish to borrow for a Coolest Aunt/Uncle Ever playdate, you now have a killer excuse to carry the wee ones for some air-conditioned train adopted by bonding time over an expertise that’s certain to thrill.
Whether or not you’re good. Or dangerous. Or simply drawn that approach.
Discover me on Fb, X or Instagram (@amydroo) or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. E mail: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For extra enjoyable, be a part of the Let’s Eat, Orlando Fb group.
For those who go
Morelia Gourmand Paletas: Florida Mall, 8001 S. Orange Blossom Path in Orlando, 321-247-5944; paletasmorelia.com