A few months ago my mother came to visit, and we had a laugh riot looking at the recipes from my vintage Jell-O cookbooks. She grew up during Jell-O's heyday, so she remembers all the classics. I asked her to pick out a recipe for me to make because the kinds of recipes I choose to make and the kinds of recipes my husband picks out for me are just a tad predictable, and she chose Ice Cream Party Dessert because it sounded halfway decent.
Being unable to find Black Raspberry Jell-O, I settled for raspberry, and otherwise I stuck to the recipe. I don't have a springform pan, so I made this recipe in my trusty Bundt pan, leaving the ladyfingers to float at the top to form a sort of crust for the gelatin-cream mixture. It was a tad difficult to trim the ladyfingers correctly to make a semi-solid layer, but I got it eventually. Other than that, this was a very straightforward recipe to make, although if making in a springform pan, I highly recommend waiting until the gelatin is at the stage where a spoon drawn through it leaves a definite impression before putting it in the pan. Otherwise your carefully arranged ladyfingers will float to the top and leave you with a less-than-Instagram-worthy result.
During setting the ice cream and the gelatin separate somewhat, but the ice cream layer looks gritty for some reason. It's probably worth noting that I wasn't using top-notch ice cream here, so maybe that's why. Aside from that it looks like a fairly normal gelatin mold (the crinkly texture on the top is due to having been stored under plastic wrap), and it tastes...okay.
The flavor of this dessert is, as you might expect, just like normal Jell-O but slightly creamier and sweeter, which today's Jell-O mixes just don't need. If you replicated this recipe but with unsweetened whipped cream, you would probably get a better end result. As ever, the best part of Jell-O + ladyfinger creations is the airy, spongy texture the ladyfingers get when soaked in gelatin, and that is predictably also the case here. And as per usual, my recommendations on how to improve this recipe are as follows:
-Use unflavored gelatin instead of Jell-O
-Sub in a vanilla-compatible juice for the water, or at least 2/3 of the water
I think this would be particularly pretty and tasty with black cherry juice. Another good option would be orange juice for a creamsicle flavor. Either of those would make for a festive dessert fit for a party, especially in a springform pan, but with actual Jell-O it winds up just overly sweet and artificial tasting. I ate all of it, but I didn't look forward to finishing it off.
Today's JOJ recipe has been quite a treat. You see, a few months back I attempted to make my grandmother's lemon icebox pie recipe, in which lemon juice and sweetened condensed milk are set in a graham cracker crust with the help of egg yolks. It's a scrumptious pie, except mine didn't set up--it wound up being a lemon icebox pudding with a side of graham cracker crumbs, which was tasty, but not the same. At the time, I kept thinking that if I had just added a small amount of gelatin, it would have worked beautifully.
Fast forward a few months and my brother-in-law's girlfriend picked out the Lemon Crumb Dessert for me to try (since I plan on making all of these recipes anyhow, I have friends and family pick out the next one for me to keep the order semi random, plus other people tend to be more sympathetic and less sadistic than my husband for this purpose), and based on the recipe, it looked very similar to a lemon icebox pie.
Fortunately I recently acquired a large stock of high-quality unflavored gelatin (I've heard good things about the Great Lakes brand, but I've had luck with Vital Proteins, so that's what I use), so I was able to use that plus lemon extract in place of Jell-O. Aside from that, I made the recipe as written, except I reduced the salt to roughly an eighth of a teaspoon because excess salt can very easily ruin a whole batch of gelatin.
To extract two thirds of a cup of lemon juice, I juiced three lemons and added a tiny bit of water to reach the full amount, so if you don't mind having some leftover lemon, get four to make sure. As far as my gelatin ratio goes, I used one-and-a-half tablespoons in this recipe, which is a fine amount. In a previous test with my gelatin, I found that one tablespoon per cup of liquid makes a gel that is very solid and similar to gummy candy in texture, so I dialed it back for a creamier end result. I added half a teaspoon of lemon extract to replace the Jell-O flavoring, but if you like lemon you could add a whole teaspoon without issue.
In order to get the graham cracker crumbs, I crunched up a few bags of crackers with a hammer, measured the total quantity of the bits, and then ran them through the food processor, which worked perfectly. It took me about two-and-one-third bags to reach four cups of crumbs.
The only fiddly thing about making this recipe was whipping the gelatin-lemon-milk mixture. When I read "whip until fluffy," I think of the medium-peak stage of whipped cream. Though I know whipping gelatin takes a long time, I went at it with my hand mixer at high speed for a good ten minutes and the beaters were still not leaving any discernable trail in the mix. In that time, the volume of the liquid had increased substantially, but it was not what I would call fluffy. Since I was getting nostalgic for my grandmother's lemon icebox pie, which is dense and custardy and in no way fluffy, I settled for rolling with what I had instead of continuing.
In the end, the Lemon Crumb Dessert delivers on its promise to feed a crowd; since I didn't have any pans of the size specified in the recipe, I am housing this recipe in a loaf pan, a casserole dish, two ramekins, and a small Pyrex storage bowl. I didn't think I would have enough graham cracker crumbs to put a crust in the glass bowl, but in the end I had enough left over to give it a top crust.
This recipe doesn't look like much--in fact it resembles mayonnaise more than anything--but it is very tasty. It is indeed identical in flavor to the lemon icebox pie of yore, but texturally it is unique. After all my doubting, I think I beat this mixture just enough because, after setting, it is quite fluffy. It has the consistency of a stiff meringue, which makes it feel light, as gelatin often does at its best. That's a good thing, too, because otherwise, with all of the dairy, sugar, and butter, this recipe would be very rich.
I am pleased with how this recipe turned out, and there's not much I can recommend as to how to improve upon the way I made it. The Lemon Crumb Dessert would make a delightful dish to serve at a spring picnic or a backyard barbecue in the heat of August as it's cool, refreshing, and not too heavy. For all of the lemon included, it's not even intensely lemony. My husband is not fond of gelatin, but he said this was the best JOJ recipe I have made so far, so that's pretty high praise.
