Ponche Caliente Navideño | Mexican Christmas Hot Fruit Punch | RECIPE

A traditional Mexican Christmas drink, (although it doesn't necessarily need to be Christmas to enjoy this drink) that consists of fruit, sugar and spice simmered together in water. Similar to hot apple cider, in my opinion.

This is a very easy recipe, muy fácil!

Exact quantities really vary...honestly every time my mom and I make this, it's different amounts of everything. So these numbers are just going to go off the last time we made this. It's all about trial and error, your tastebuds and definitely your sweetness preferences.

Ingredients
  • 2 Piloncillo or panela, which is pure, unrefined cane sugar
  • 1 Apple
  • 4 Guavas
  • 1/4 cup of Dried Jamaica or hibiscus leaves
  • 2 Tamarind, peeled and deveined
  • 3 Cinnamon sticks
  • 1 eight inch piece of sugar cane, peeled and chopped into smaller pieces
  • Regular granulated sugar
  • 1 gallon of water

1.You need to chop all your fruit (washed first) into slices and smaller pieces but not so small that they will like melt away because they're being boiled down. As mentioned in the ingredients list, the tamarind should be peeled and deveined leaving just the pulp. Sugar cane should also be peeled and chopped into bite size pieces.

2. Now place all your ingredients, minus the regular sugar, into your pot with water. Boil for 45 minutes to an hour. At some point maybe half hour into boiling, give it a taste for sweetness and now add the regular sugar as needed. We only had one piloncillo so it wasn't very sweet, the guavas were also a bit on the bitter side so we added a half cup of regular sugar to compensate.

3. Listo! It's ready to serve, nice and hot but not too hot that'll scald your tongue. No, let it cool off a little bit. You can serve it with fruit pieces in it so they don't go to waste and are eaten or you can strain it and discard the fruit, up to you...nothing wrong with the fruit though. Obviously you don't eat the cinnamon sticks and sugar cane isn't really eaten either.
That's it. Ponche Caliente Navideno, Mexican Christmas Hot Fruit Punch. I hope you try this for the holiday season but like I said any time that's chilly and you want a hot beverage to warm you up, drink this and enjoy!


22 Upcycled DIY Christmas Ornaments

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, How shall I decorate thee!? (in a way that's Eco-friendly of course)...

1. Cookie Cutters


2. Pop Tab Wreath by PopTopTastic

3. Coca Cola Can Curls by brandyfisher


4. Music Sheet Cut-outs

5. Soda Can Stars by LizardSkins


6. Button Mini Wreath

7. Penguin Light Bulbs


8. Map Paper Stars by HullStreetGreen

9. Vintage Spools by Cattales


10. Bike Chain Star

11. Terrarium/Planter


12. Wine Cork Angel by PineywoodsPickle

13. Stained Glass Poinsettias (out of paper towel cardboard rolls)


14. Wire wrapped Key

15. Toilet Paper Roll Owls
arbol navidad buhos


16. Circuit Board Cut-outs

17. Beer Bottle Caps by GetsiGypsyGifts


18. Recycled Newspaper Holiday Shapes

19. Upcycled Wool, stitched by ADKnits


20. Aluminum Can Angels

21. Curled Aluminum Cans
Holiday Ornaments  (reverse side of front)


22. Scrabble Tiles

☮♥♻


DIY Number Piñata Made Out of Cardboard

To make your own piñata you can use cardboard or foam board works too. You can paper mache with newspaper or not. It really depends on how much of a challenge you'd like it be. If you're having mostly younger kids at the party you probably don't want it to be too hard for them to break open.


Since this piñata is for my son's first birthday, it's mostly just for show (totally doubles as decor too, make it coordinate). I know he's not going to break it open and if he does well wow. So yeah I only paper mached the bottom. I used a box of diapers so I was able to use one of the built in handles for the opening needed to put the candy inside. I added a rope handle and reinforced the top part with double cardboard. I didn't have masking tape but I used this brown tape I had to put it altogether. I'm pretty sure you can use any kind of tape. You can also use hot glue. I hot glued the handle and top area. For a piñata stick I covered a 24" PVC pipe in metallic foil fringe (you can see a tiny bit of it in the first pic).

Now, of course I like to make things harder than they need to be so for the tissue paper I chose this laborious style. I found this video tutorial by Van TopSecret. It's for a standee but works for this especially if you want a bigger sized piñata like I did.

I was only going to use the video for the measurements but ended up really liking the look of the tissue paper. They only did the front. I did the whole thing because a piñata is seen from all angles. I regretted it like a quarter of the way through but in the end I do like the result very much. Mine was less rolled up tissue and more like little paper explosions. I don't know I thought it went with the vintage race car theme we were doing. If you want to be the most frugal with this definitely stick with using crepe paper streamers, cutting it into fringe and gluing on in rows. I imagine that's super quick and less glue, less cost.

These are the measurements I used from the video. My piñata ended up being about 26" tall.