Way Out There Recipe #3: Coffee Jelly

Howdy, Jigglers! Today I would like to introduce you to a gelatin-based treat that literally took me years to perfect. Technically, anyway. I first made Coffee Jelly way back in 2018 after hearing about it here. It looked like something I would just love (I mean, you had me at "sweetened condensed milk"), so I made a big pan of it. I no longer remember exactly what I did to make it flop so badly, but suffice it to say that it was so weak and flavorless that I didn't see fit to post about it. If I recall correctly, the jelly itself was not sweet enough, it was too soft and didn't cut into cubes nicely at all, and it was just very weak on the coffee flavor.

I did, however, photograph it.

 

Those aren't cubes. Not even close.

Fast forward to March 2021, when we first started getting some warmer mornings, and for some reason this recipe poppped back into my mind. Armed with better knowledge of coffee after having made the switch from an automatic drip coffeemaker to an electric percolator a year or two ago, I thought it was worth revisiting.

After having failed miserably the first time to make coffee jelly, I made sure to do a couple of extra things to help its chances at being tasty this time around. First, I used this flavored decaf grind from Coffee Beanery (in a coarse grind for perking purposes), as it was what I was drinking anyway, and I thought the flavor would add some richness. I also let it percolate for an extra-long time to get the strongest brew possible.

Then I poured it into a bowl and added two heaping tablespoons of sugar and two heaping tablespoons of my favorite unflavored gelatin (from Vital Proteins--I know I'm name dropping a lot of companies here, but they aren't paying me; I just want you to be able to recreate what I did if desired) and then mixed well. I then greased a loaf pan because it was small enough that I would get the desired cube thickness with the quantity of liquid that I had, and when the coffee was cooled, I put it in the pan and refrigerated until completely hardened.

 

See the difference between how this cut and how my first attempt cut? I attribute that to adding more gelatin per cup than the first time.

Coffee³

 

The next question was about the creamy liquid swirling around amongst those cubes. I didn't have any sweetened condensed milk on hand (I don't know what's gotten into me, I should always have at least two cans around), but I had heavy cream, so I ended up heating the cream with about a tablespoon of sugar and roughly half a cup of water, just to make drinking cream a little less intense. I only cooked this mixture until the sugar was melted and mixed in, then cooled it.

That's more like it.

This time, my coffee jelly was, in a word, decadent. I definitely got a hint of the butter rum flavor, which was sumptuous with the sweetened cream. The jelly itself was strongly coffee-flavored, not too sweet, and close to being chewy, which is my personal favorite texture of gelatin. My loaf pan made enough jelly for three small cups or two large cups (though I can't imagine eating a tall glass of this concoction all at once, that's how rich it is). Coffee jelly is not going to be replacing cold brew as my daily coffee fix in the summer any time soon, just because of how much sugar is involved, but it makes a great treat. It would be divine served after an al fresco summer brunch.

The next time I make this, I will use some sweetened condensed milk, though I will have to convince myself to use it sparingly. As far as the jelly goes, the only thing I might want to do is make double the amount by making two percolators' worth of coffee.

"But...I don't have a percolator!" I hear you say. Well, in that case, I can also make some suggestions. The first one is to use an automatic drip machine, just with a couple of extra tablespoons of coffee added, maybe four extra for a full pot or two extra for half a pot. This will make your coffee strong to start with. Secondly, if you have any doubts about the strength of your coffee, add some instant coffee to it. Cooling down the gelatin reduces the strength of its flavor massively, and even if the final product is pretty strong, the cream will cut its flavor considerably, so you want to err on the side of too strong rather than too weak. Alternatively, you could cut out the middleman and use instant coffee to begin with. It seems that's what most people do, so it must work. 

In any case, I highly recommend giving coffee jelly a try this spring or summer. It's rich, it's stylish, and, most importantly, it's a gelatin dish that has been trendy within the past decade, and that's enough in my book. Enjoy!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #53: Rainbow Cake

 Howdy, Jigglers! Today we are going to discuss the very first pictured recipe in The Joys of Jell-O: the Rainbow Cake. An impressive dessert, this isn't really a cake per se; rather, it is five different flavors of whipped Jell-O layered together in a springform pan, then released from the pan and iced with whipped cream (no, not Dream Whip--not now, not ever).

Although this recipe is literally the first thing that catches your eye upon opening up JOJ, I hadn't been able to make it sooner due to a total lack of springform pans in my kitchen. However, a couple of months ago I happened upon just such a pan at a craft store, and the Rainbow Cake immediately sprang to mind, so I bought it even though I came to the store looking for fabric. So it goes.

So now that I had a way to make it, I had to figure out what to use for ingredients. While I am all behind swapping out the Jell-O for unflavored gelatin + an appropriately flavored juice, I decided to stick with regular old Jell-O in this instance. The reason for this is that the spectacle of this dish comes from the colors, and without messing about with food coloring, I wasn't going to get the colors I wanted out of natural juices. Someday I might try making this again with juices, but I really wanted to make this Rainbow Cake look as much like the photo as possible. The only issue I had was that I could not find black raspberry Jell-O anywhere--I'm thinking they no longer make it, so I substituted black cherry Jell-O.

One thing that only occurred to me as I was starting to make the Jell-O for this dish is that the cake looks pretty tall, and my springform pan is the shorter kind usually used for cheesecakes. To remedy this (or, rather, to jerry-rig it as best I could), I lined the sides of my pan with parchment paper cut far taller than indicated in the recipe, hoping that by the time the layers of gelatin reached the top of the pan, it would hold the paper taut around the sides, enabling it to support the weight of the top layers. It's whipped Jell-O, anyhow, so how heavy could it possibly be?

 

So then I proceeded to start cooking, cooling, and whipping the five different Jell-Os. To streamline the process, I cooked one at a time, and when that was done cooking, I put it on a trivet on the counter to start cooling and started to cook the next flavor. When that was done, I put the first batch in the fridge, the second batch on the trivet, and fired up the third batch. When the third batch was cooked, the first batch was ready to whip, so I got the fourth batch started on the stove while I whipped the first batch, and kept cycling the flavors around like that until they were all whipped and in the pan. The pan stayed in the fridge between each addition. Even timing it like this, it took a long time to get the cake assembled. Plan a morning or an afternoon to get this thing ready.

As you can see, only a little bit of the top layer ended up exceeding the height of my pan, so afterwards I cut down the parchment paper substantially. I imagine that for the photo in the recipe book, they either used double batches of each Jell-O flavor or a springform pan that was smaller in diameter to make the cake taller.

Here you can see the texture of the whipped gelatin as it is added to the cake. This was the other main thing that drew me to this recipe: whipped Jell-O is great, so I was excited to taste a rainbow of flavors, all in whipped form.

After the gelatin had set, I carefully released it from the springform pan...

And gingerly removed the parchment paper...

At this point, I was worried. My stomach started to sink. I knew that some of the odd shape of this was due to the parchment paper, but I couldn't help but wonder if the layers were going to be so uneven as to ruin the effect. I pressed on, though, and got the cream whipped and on the cake.

At least now, I thought, the cake doesn't look so ungainly. Now it was time for the big reveal...

Now I was content again. It didn't look too uneven, although I have no idea why some layers fluffed up more than others. The point is, it was close enough. And the taste? Though I think this would certainly taste better using fruit juices instead of Jell-O, I wasn't disappointed. As I have mentioned previously, whipping Jell-O does dilute the flavor some, so it wasn't overpowering, especially if you had a bite with whipped cream. That was the best. Honestly, what would make this cake truly excellent is adding a layer of whipped cream in between each gelatin layer, although that would make it very tall, and it would ruin the rainbow effect.

One thing to note with the Rainbow Cake is that it does not store very well: You could refrigerate it in a covered cake pan, in which case the whipped cream will dry out, or you can smoosh some plastic wrap on it, causing the whipped cream to peel off of the cake when you unwrap it. I recommend serving this cake to a group to finish it off quickly, or perhaps splitting it between two or three people for your entire meal (not that I would ever condone such a meal).

Also, if you aren't against adding some extra carbs to the Rainbow Cake, you could always just add the boxes of Jell-O to white cake mix separately, then layer them together in a springform pan and bake it. It would look just about the same, but it would taste more like a traditional cake. I bet that would be great too, and probably take a lot less time. Less jiggle factor, though.

All in all, even though it was laborious to make, the Rainbow Cake was worth the effort because it really makes a statement. Unlike the Birthday Surprise, this feels like it would even be suitable for a normal birthday celebration, so I am one-hundred percent behind this recipe.