We have a new pop! It's a banana flavored pop frozen inside of a chocolate pop. A chocolate-covered banana treat. Once Mark created the Peaches n' Cream pop - a pop within a pop - he was on to the next combination pop experiment and it didn't take long to discover he had another new delicious flavor.
Shared flavor compounds. Why does chocolate pair with fruit? Cacao beans contain hundreds of aroma compounds, and many of them overlap with ones found in fruit. Dark chocolate in particular often has natural berry, cherry, citrus, or even banana-like notes depending on the bean origin and how it's fermented and roasted. Pairing chocolate with a fruit that shares some of those compounds tends to amplify what's already there.
Did you know? Bananas were an exotic luxury in the U.S. until the late 1800s. They became more popularized at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where they were sold wrapped in foil. Once they became cheap and common, they started showing up in all sorts of desserts.
Chocolate-dipped fruit. Coating fruit in chocolate is common and bananas were a natural fit since they're sweet, sturdy, and easy to put on a stick.
The frozen chocolate banana. The most commonly cited origin of the modern version is Balboa Island in Newport Beach, California, where a stand began selling frozen chocolate-dipped bananas on a stick in 1945. It's still operating and often gets credit for popularizing the treat, though "invented it" is a local claim rather than settled fact.
We hope you'll stop by and try this delicious new combination pop!