The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #65: Banana Splits

Howdy, Jigglers! Sometimes, life brings you lemons and you need to make lemonade. Other times, life brings you bananas, and in that case you naturally start scouring vintage Jell-O cookbooks for a dessert that requires only cheap or free ingredients and bananas. Right?

Anyhow, that's the situation in which I found myself last week, and so I chose to make Banana Splits because I already had one lonely packet of Dream Whip, the bananas, and the gelatin. The only question was, how should I flavor the gelatin in a way that will complement whipped cream and bananas?

I briefly thought over a few standard juice flavors, but then I decided to be just a little bit more creative and tropical with a pina colada-flavored gelatin. I got a can of first-press coconut milk and a can of pineapples, of which I used the juice (stay tuned for my next post to see how I used the pineapple, and get ready to cue the scare chords) to make my breezy tropical gelatin, with only one tablespoon of sugar and one-and-a-half tablespoons of gelatin dissolved in it. If you want boozy banana splits, I imagine adding a couple of splashes of rum to the mix would really take it over the top. Other than that, I made this recipe as written, even following the Dream Whip directions to the letter. Looking at the recipe, it seems as though a maraschino cherry garnish would be appropriate, but you honestly won't miss it.

  Maybe it's my fault, but I have never had flaked gelatin turn out with a flaky texture. One time it came out merely granular, and this time "flaking" the gelatin just seemed to slice it more than anything. In this instance, it might be partially due to the higher-than-normal fat content of the gelatin, but it might also be due to the tines of my forks not being far enough apart. So my advice to anyone wanting to flake gelatin is to use a big fork, such as a serving fork, preferably with squared tine edges to achieve a decent flake.

Other than that, this recipe turned out really, really well. The creaminess of the coconut gelatin, bananas, and Dream Whip was just luxurious considering how relatively healthy it all is, and the nuts (I used pecans) provided a great textural contrast.

In terms of servings, this recipe makes enough gelatin and whipped cream to make three deluxe banana splits, four standard banana splits, or up to eight mini banana splits (using half of one banana apiece), though it certainly depends on how much coconut milk and pineapple juice you have. The way I made it, though, was quite delicious, and I commend General Foods for coming up with a tasty alternative to an ordinary ice cream-based banana split.