Miss Jell-O Pudding Pops? They're Ridiculously Easy To Make At Home

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When the ice cream truck rolled up on your block blasting that catchy jingle, which frozen treat were you lining up to buy? The "Spiderman"-shaped popsicle with gumballs for eyes? The orange creamsicle pop? The strawberry shortcake bar with crumbly, little shortcake pieces? Or were you eyeballing the richer treats like Klondike bars and Jell-O Pudding Pops? While you won't find those beloved Jell-O Pudding Pops at ice cream trucks or grocery stores these days, you can make them at home with a few ridiculously easy steps.

First and foremost, grab your Jello-O Pudding Mix and dump it into a large bowl. You'll want the kind that you can make with cold milk, not the one that needs heating up. Add the milk as instructed on the packaging and stir until fully mixed. If you want to make a version of the pudding pops similar to the 1960s-style Jell-O Pudding Frozen Fudge Pops, you can stop here, but if you're hoping for a fluffier texture similar to later pudding pop styles, mix in 1 cup of Cool Whip. Once the mixture is ready to go, scoop it into whatever mold fits your fancy, such as these handy silicone ice pop molds or these avant-garde dinosaur-shaped ice pop molds, and freeze for between four to six hours. As long as you avoid these 10 mistakes you're making with homemade popsicles, you'll have a taste of that nostalgic frozen treat in no time.

During the peak of their popularity, Jell-O released a pudding pop mold kit that allowed users to make their own frozen pops at home. Sold at grocery stores, this kit came with two molds (which meant 12 pop slots), three boxes of chocolate pudding mix, and three boxes of vanilla pudding mix, which were the only flavors of Jell-O Pudding Pops. In the pre-frozen boxes, there was also an option for a "swirl" flavor that combined both chocolate and vanilla, but that was it. Just the three flavors. Given the dozens of Jell-O pudding mix flavors that exist today, such as pumpkin, raspberry, lemon, and banana cream, the possibilities for flavored Jell-O Pudding Pops are endless.

Even though the original Jell-O Pudding Pops are no longer available (in case you were curious what happened to Jell-O Pudding Pops), the name was licensed to the popular Popsicle brand in 2004. These new pops didn't taste the same as the original Jell-O Pudding Pops did, even taking on a smaller, skinnier shape to go along with their new, lesser-adored flavor. People hated the new pops so much that sales never became profitable, and the Popsicle-branded Jell-O Pudding Pops left the market. These days, since Jell-O Pudding Pops have joined the dreaded list of 18 discontinued frozen treats you almost forgot about, the only way to enjoy the taste is to make them on your own.