The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #88: Orange Ginger Whip

Howdy, Jigglers! I decided to make the Orange Ginger Whip upon randomly turning to a page in JOJ and discovering how few ingredients this recipe called for. For the price of a few oranges and some ginger ale, you can make a bold whipped Jell-O recipe!

 

This recipe is pretty easy to make: heat gelatin in ginger ale, add orange juice, chill slightly, and then whip to a bubbly, fluffy state with a hand mixer. You then pour it into a mold and let set completely before unmolding.

 

I changed just one part of this recipe: instead of orange Jell-O, I used a combination of unflavored gelatin and orange zest to flavor the Orange Ginger Whip. My recommendation is to use the zest of one orange, being careful not to include any pith, which imparts a bitter flavor, and to add a tablespoon of sugar to the ginger ale as it heats. I did not do this and ended up needing to sweeten the whip with some drizzled honey (which is not bad, if you prefer to do it that way). If you would rather top this mold with whipped cream, as mentioned in the recipe, I would suggest you include a fair amount of powdered sugar in the cream.

 

I like how this mold is whipped but doesn't contain cream. Normally the whipped recipes contain some kind of dairy, but this one has the bubbles incorporated without being creamy, and that has a novel effect. You don't taste much of the ginger ale, so it mostly just tastes like oranges, but that's a fine way to taste.

 

A note for those used to whipping creamy Jell-O: this will probably not whip up to the same volume as you are accustomed to. That's okay. It will still be fluffy. Just whip it as much as you can and don't be anxious about it like I was.

Now, the most mysterious part of this recipe is the claim that it has "many uses." I have no earthly idea of what those uses could be. This recipe is in the Two-Way Salads part of the book, though it seems really out of place there. It is just a fruity dessert, and there aren't even any savory-leaning garnishes mentioned. I don't think this would work atop salad greens, but I can't think of many uses it would have in the confectionery world either. Perhaps you could coat small cakes in it instead of an icing (a la petit fours) or use it as a filling in between layers of angel food cake or something, but other than that I am seriously struggling to think of any use this could have outside of just eating it by itself. We might always have to wonder what General Foods was referring to there.

Despite the unsolved case of its recipe's description, Orange Ginger Whip is an easy, cheap, and fine-tasting Jell-O recipe that would be a welcome addition at any spring or summer gathering for its unique texture and burst of citrus flavor. Just don't kid yourself and try to serve it as an actual salad, as General Foods implies you can. It has soda in it, after all.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #153: Ring Around the Tuna

Howdy, Jigglers! Today's recipe is one of the most ominously named in the entirety of JOJ: Ring Around the Tuna. Nothing sounds more like a match made in Jell-O heaven than "Ring Around the Tuna," right? This savory mold is made with lemon or lime Jell-O, grated onion, cucumber, celery, olives, pimento, and tuna coagulated together, to be served with lettuce and perhaps mayonnaise.

 

Now, of course, in my neverending quest to make the platonic ideal form of each JOJ recipe, I made a couple of adjustments here. I swapped out lemon Jell-O for unflavored gelatin with lemon juice and lemon zest (I recommend the juice of 1.5 lemons and the zest of 1), I omitted the grated onion (sue me!), and I didn't incorporate the tuna into the gelatin itself. That just seemed...wrong. In all the years I've had this book, I always looked at this recipe and figured that the tuna goes in the middle of the mold, as in the Ring mold goes Around The Tuna, for some reason, and I didn't want to change that notion when I made it. In fact, I always imagined that General Foods originally styled the photo for this recipe with a pile of tuna in the middle of the ring mold, but it turned out so horrific-looking that they had to cover it with curly endive to make it even vaguely presentable.

 

The other change I made was to halve the amount of the celery and cucumber, because, as I've explained many times before in these recipes, the amount of chunky ingredients seems wildly out of proportion to the quantity of gelatin called for, leading to misshapen molds that don't look smooth or even transparent enough to make out what's in them. If you want to feed Ring Around the Tuna to a crowd (and God bless you if you do), I highly recommend doubling the amount of water, gelatin, and juice/zest to accomodate all that greenery. In my case, I just wanted to make four lunch salads, so I opted to halve those bulky ingredients to get a better-looking mold.

 

Somehow, after all this time, I still don't have a non-Bundt-pan large ring mold, so I put it in this old-style mold that I call the jellyfish mold. This sort of proves my point about the proportions of this recipe, in that this thing is not going to even come close to filling up a large ring mold unless you at least double if not triple the recipe, in which case I still recommend using half the quantity of vegetables that the doubled or tripled recipe gives you for aesthetics and ease of cutting.

The method in this recipe is that of any basic Jell-O salad: you heat the gelatin in water (in my case I let it bloom on the water first, then heat only until dissolved to avoid getting gelatin stuck to your pot and thus not acting upon the recipe as you'd hope), you add cold liquid, you let it chill until slighly thickened, then you add the solids and place the whole kit and kaboodle into an oiled mold and chill until completely set. You then unmold.

 

So how did it go? 

 

Remember how I mentioned earlier that I recommend flavoring this recipe with the juice of one-and-a-half lemons and the zest of one? Well, that's because I used the juice of three lemons and the zest of two, and it was a little much. In fact, it was so acidic that my stomach hurt a little after eating my first salad with it, consisting of half a can of tuna, a quarter of this mold, and some romaine lettuce. In subsequent servings I remedied this by applying a generous quantity of mayonnaise, which makes it more palatable. However, the intense lemon flavor does drown out a lot of the celery, cucumber, and olive flavors in the mold, hence my recommendation.

 

Due to my lack of a suitable ring mold, this is more like a Slice Beside the Tuna, but the idea is the same. Also, a side note: this recipe has never been and never will be fancy enough to warrant curly endive and radish roses. Sorry.

 

Other than my goof with the amount of lemon juice I forced into this poor gelatin mold, I like it pretty well. The flavors do suit tuna, and the salad, even with mayo added, is fairly light and healthy while being filling enough to sustain me in my job, which is fairly active. It's definitely low carb and gets those veggies and Vitamin C in.

 

All in all, this is not as bad as you'd think, although I would not serve it to any but the most experienced Jell-O enthusiasts. I don't know why or how it was dreamt up, but I guess I'm glad it was, which is more than I expected to say about this. So, good job, General Foods...?

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #22: Crown Jewel Dessert

Howdy, Jigglers! Last month I had a big old BBQ party, and of course I wanted to make a Jell-O dessert (as opposed to a Jell-O seafood salad or something) for my guests. Fortunately one of the prettiest dessert recipes from JOJ was still on my list of to-makes: Crown Jewel Dessert. It is comprised of cubes of clear Jell-O suspended in a gelatin-y matrix of pineapple juice mixed with whipped cream, Dream Whip, or even cream cheese and milk (more on that later).

As you can see, there are several variations on this dessert, but I knew I wanted to make a mold-based one since I knew someone was bringing pie to the party already. However, the cheese variation seriously caught my eye, so I decided to combine them. Since we were already fully immersed in autumn, I decided to base my color scheme for this stained-glass Jell-O mold on that and went with cherry, orange, and lemon gelatins.

So first, a day ahead of time, I made the three clear Jell-Os as specified on the package (except I added two teaspoons of unflavored gelatin, and I always allow the gelatin to bloom in room-temperature water [the "boiling" water] and then heat and stir it until dissolved, and then add the cold water) and allowed them to set in square dishes so they could be cut into cubes later

The next day, I cut these Jell-Os into 1-inch cubes and set to work on the white part of the recipe. I then dissolved unflavored gelatin into some pineapple nectar, and heated it. Meanwhile, I had let cream cheese come to room temperature and mixed it with about 1/4 of a cup of milk. Then I added the pineapple gelatin mixture into the cheese mixture and beat it until well combined.

 

 

After that, I poured the pineapple mixture into two molds, then I placed some of the gelatin cubes into the cheese mixture in each mold. I had plenty of cubes left over, by the way.

As mentioned, I made this dish in two molds, but if you have a very large mold, you can probably get it into one.

The smaller melon-shaped mold didn't turn out the best because the mixture was already a little thickened by the time I got it into the molds, but oh well.

So for once, I actually did serve this dessert to guests, who all approved of it. It doesn't taste as autumnal as it looks (go figure), but it was fruity and creamy for sure. The pineapple flavor in the dish is not strong, but it's still a nice combination. If I made this again, I would perhaps exchange the cream cheese for coconut milk to make a pina colada flavor, particularly if I were only going to use tropical-flavored Jell-Os for the cubes (think lime, pineapple, orange).

All told, Crown Jewel Dessert is an infinitely customizeable, perfectly tasty, and very impressive-looking Jell-O recipe that I highly recommend for your next potluck or get together. So thanks, General Foods, for a normal dessert recipe for once!

Heirloom Recipes #1: Strawberry Jell-O Cake

 Howdy, Jigglers! Today I'm starting a new series on the blog of old family Jell-O recipes, whether they're from my family or from someone I know. It seems like I have accumulated quite a few of these over the past six months or so, so I figured it's time to start sprinkling these into the Jell-O rotation (not that I don't love the upcoming JOJ recipes for my blogging efforts, like Ring Around the Tuna) for some variety.

To inaugurate the series, I am making a recipe that my mom apparently used to make a lot back in the good old days before I came around: Strawberry Jell-O Cake! No, it's not a cake. But it does have strawberry Jell-O, though. It is a nutty strawberry-banana fruit mixture in two layers of strawberry Jell-O with a layer of Cool Whip in between. For a less sweet variation, I have seen this same basic recipe posted around the Internets with straight sour cream in between the two gelatin layers instead of Cool Whip, but of course I wanted to try the recipe as written.

Now, since it was written in the 70s, package sizes and presentations of the various ingredients have changed between then and now, but you get enough to go on, certainly. What my mom left (perhaps intentionally) vague is how to mix all the ingredients together. I guess you could mix everything together in one layer, but research into similar Jell-O salads reveal that most people layer them.

The method for this Jell-O madness is simple and straightforward: mix your Jell-O and boiling water, cool until very thick, mix in the rest of the ingredients (I separated the gelatin into halves before mixing in the frozen strawberries so my top layer wouldn't set too soon), pour half into the pan, let set, put Cool Whip over it, then repeat the process for the first layer for the second one. I was planning on making a layer of half of my Cool Whip in the middle and then putting the rest on top, as my mom indicates in the recipe, but half the tub wasn't nearly enough Cool Whip to make a satisfactory or even noticeable layer in the middle, so I just spread it all on there. Even with all the Cool Whip spread on the first layer, I didn't feel like I had enough creamy goodness, so I spread on a little plain yogurt on top of it. If you really want Cool Whip on top, get two tubs.

The Jell-O layers turned out very chunky, but it just shows how bursting with fruit they are! 

The little sprinkly bits in the gelatin are the pecans--we could only find pecan bits and not chopped or halved or whole pecans, or else I would've made those a little chunkier too. 

I was pleased with the adherence of the Jell-O to the Cool Whip, since each slice of this "cake" held together pretty well.

 

 

Now that's a satisfactory and noticeable Cool Whip layer. This cake reminds me a lot of the Austrian and Peruvian flags. For all my Austrian and Peruvian readers out there, this would be a great dessert for any of your national holidays.

I know I always talking about serving Jell-O dishes at luncheons, but this time I really did serve the Strawberry Jell-O Cake at a luncheon with some friends and their kids, and everybody finished their servings, plus I even sent some second servings home with them. It was very tasty and cool on a toasty day, and the fruitiness of it mixed with all the creaminess in the center was delightful.

It was slightly concerning to see how much cake this recipe made considering the quantity of bananas in them, but the gelatin kept the nanners perfectly preserved for three or four days, so you've got time to finish this beast off, but I do recommend either serving it to a group or making it for a larger family or halving the recipe if you're not sure you can finish it right away.

If you're reading this, Mom, congrats! Your recipe got rave reviews! Even though I don't remember having eaten this as a kid, it still brings back that 70s nostalgia. I can taste the Watergate salad now (stay tuned...)

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #110: Ribbon Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! I'm following a short-term plan of what JOJ recipes to do next (I call it the Great Jiggle Forward), and the next one in line is a Two-Way Recipe called Ribbon Salad. This layered salad consists of a layer of lime Jell-O topped by a thick layer of lemon Jell-O mixed with pineapple, cream cheese, mayonnaise, and whipped cream (more about that in a moment), all of which is topped by a layer of raspberry Jell-O.

I suppose the only reason this recipe is considered a Two-Way is due to the inclusion of mayo. It's absurd to me to imagine this served as an actual salad on greens, as it is pictured, as it would be similar to slapping a scoop of strawberry ice cream onto a bed of greens and calling that a salad. I know Jell-O has always wanted to bill itself as a healthful, light food, but this is a deceitful way to do it.

For once, I made this recipe with the listed ingredients, as I didn't want to spend the cash and time on enough lemons, limes, and raspberry juice (assuming I could even find it) to flavor all three layers, although I certainly think it would be delightful if you did. Some yellow and green food coloring would come in handy for that to get the visual effect. However, as I didn't have crushed pineapple, I used chunk pineapple. As layered gelatin methods go, this one is a walk in the park. That didn't stop me from messing it up, though! I had gotten my egg beaters and whipping bowl in the freezer early so I would be ready to include the whipped cream in the lemon layer, but after mixing in the cream cheese and the mayonnaise, something in my brain went "that's enough creaminess" and I layered in the layer sans whipped goodness.

I only realized my error after the whole dish was set, at which point it was too late to go back and fix the mistake. Instead, I served the whipped cream (unsweetened, so as to moderate the strong Jell-O flavorings) on top of the salad.

As you can see, I didn't manage to get a single clear picture of Ribbon Salad in its pan. The lack of whipped cream made the middle layer thinner than intended, which led to the big chunks of pineapple sticking out through the top layer. *facepalm*

It still looks pretty similar to the illustration, though! I was generally pleased with the outcome. The taste was fairly strong, but with the creamy elements in the middle, its pungency was diluted somewhat. For those curious, no, you cannot distinguish the taste of mayonnaise amongst all the other flavors. I do believe this dish would have been better with the whipped cream mixed in, so it's not completely fair to judge the recipe given my mistake, but on the other hand, it wasn't promising enough to want to redo the whole thing right away. Maybe I will someday if I'm really bored.

 

The thing that stuck out to me the most here was that the recipe makes a full 13"x9" pan. Unlike most Jell-O recipes, which generally make a mold big enough to be a small side dish for a medium group, Ribbon Salad could be served at a large meeting. I cut my pan into 12 squares, but it could just as easily have made 16 or 20 pieces. For a fancy garnish, I would recommend fresh raspberries.

The other great use of Ribbon Salad would be any event dealing with Ghana or Bolivia, since the colors are so similar to their flags. Of course, if you rearrange the order of the layers, you could easily make other flag patterns.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #129: Vegetables in Sour Cream

Howdy, Jigglers! Since I had some sour cream left over from the last JOJ recipe I made, I decided to make another sour cream-based recipe with sour cream and Jell-O: Vegetables in Sour Cream. Did it sound like a good idea? No. Did that deter me? Not a chance.

While I was unable to find tarragon vinegar, I did find the last bottle of tarragon on the shelf, so I let some tarragon steep in regular white vinegar for three days ahead of when I was going to make the gelatin, which worked just fine. I'd never used tarragon before, but now I highly recommend it. It's slightly sweet and minty, but also savory and vegetal. I bet it would make an excellent vinegarette for a spring salad.

 

Anyway, I did make a few substitutions and alterations to the ingredients in order to make the best dish possible. Firstly, I used lime juice to flavor some unflavored gelatin instead of lime Jell-O (because the sweetness of Jell-O would be very bad in this recipe). Furthermore, I used a spoonful of chicken bouillon powder instead of bouillon cubes. I also halved the quantity of each vegetable because I've always found that using the full amount makes the vegetables stick out of the gelatin too much and crowd in together unpleasantly.

The method for crafting Vegetables in Sour Cream is as basic and simple as it gets. You put your gelatin and bouillon in water, you heat the water, you add the lime juice. Then you chill, stir in the vegetables, and pour into the mold. Chill again.

And the result is...actually really good. The vegetables go well together, they stay nice and crisp in the gelatin, it's a pretty salad mold, and the gelatin matrix has a wonderful depth of flavor, what with the savory bouillon, the tarragon vinegar, the lime juice, and the sour cream. It's tangy and savory and all-around nice.

I really must commend General Foods on this vegetable mix. You couldn't pay me to sub in peas and carrots like the recipe mentions. Cucumber, scallions, radish, celery, and green pepper make a perfect spring combination. I also like that all of the veggies are diced or thinly sliced. That makes the mold much easier to cut and serve cleanly, and honestly it makes it less messy to eat.

Now look at that interior shot and tell me that halving the amount of vegetables wasn't the right thing to do. Of course, one could just as well double the amount of all of the gelatin ingredients and keep the original vegetable amounts, which would make double the amount of your mold, but with a better ratio of gelatin to vegetable.

So, overall, this recipe was very impressive. Other than the changes I made, I wouldn't alter anything, and I honestly would serve it at a spring luncheon or Easter or at a picnic as an honest-to-goodness vegetable side dish that just happens to contain gelatin. I know it seems miraculous, but it's true. Another thing I found nice about this dish is that you can use the leftover vegetables to make a nice crudites tray. So good on you, General Foods, for making a savory vegetable mold recipe that I don't even think would be that out of place in a modern Food & Wine magazine or something.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #33: Sour Cream Dessert

Howdy, Jigglers! This week in Jell-O-Land, I wanted to make a smooth dessert recipe to try out a new mold I found in a classic pattern, and I landed on Sour Cream Dessert. While the inclusion of sour cream in a dessert might sound a little odd initially, it isn't unheard of. I think some cheesecakes use sour cream, and I know I've had sour cream fruit pies (which were delicious, as I recall).

Now this is a simple little gelatin number to make. I used unflavored gelatin instead of Jell-O and canned mango nectar instead of the water for a creamy tropical mold. Note: you can't get "light cream" in my neck of the woods, so I used heavy whipping cream (it's not a low-calorie dish, I can tell you that much). Maybe you would want to use half and half instead of heavy cream, but what I did certainly worked.

The mood lighting in this photo highlights just how beige this dessert turned out. It perfectly illustrates the nice new mold shape, though! The beigeness is due to a combination of the mango nectar and the artificial vanilla I used. The color, of course, will change depending on what you include as a fruit flavoring.

 

This is one creamy Jell-O dessert, which shouldn't be surprising considering that it's mostly dairy. All that creaminess and fat did drown out the mango flavor, though, and overall you only taste sweet dairy. Instead of slicing up a mango on top of the gelatin, which would also be great, I decided to make a mango nectar reduction sauce, since I had some of the nectar left over. I simmered a can of mango nectar with a quarter cup of sugar until it was well reduced. This sauce, when heated and poured over this gelatin, is AMAZING. It gels perfectly with the tangy hint of sour cream while being sweet and mangoey enough to taste like a slice of tropical heaven. The hot-cold contrast is also nice. It's a lot like serving flan with caramel sauce--you might not want to eat flan on its own, but with the sauce it's divine.

After filling my new mold, I had some gelatin mix left over, so I put it in an individual mold as well. Also pretty! I love how well it takes on the molds' shapes.

While slighly unconventional, Sour Cream Dessert is endlessly versatile. I can see where it would be delicious with some cherry juice in the mix and then topped with a cherry sauce, and it would be perfect with blueberries or blackberries too. Or gooseberries, anyone? Larger stone fruits like peaches and plums would even work. I might have to try this one again sometime with a different fruit combination and see what happens. Watch this space!

Anyway, thanks General Foods, for a somewhat bland recipe that you can whip up in a flash and use with nearly anything.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #119: Vegetable Trio

Howdy, Jigglers! It had to happen sooner or later--sooner or later I had to make Vegetable Trio, a layered Jell-O mold flavored with salad Jell-O and full of raw vegetables. Oh joy.

In all reality, I don't even mind the idea overly much. I like carrots, cabbage, and spinach, and the layered look is aesthetically pleasing. Even so, I knew that encasing all of that in savory gelatin was just going to be weird. I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Since, as you may or may not be aware, Jell-O Salad Gelatin has not been available in around 50 years, I added a hefty sprinkle of celery salt and some unflavored gelatin in place the savory Jell-O mix and salt. In order to make a more flavorful salad, I substituted homemade chicken broth for both the boiling and cold water in the recipe. In addition, chives are not available where I live, so I used finely sliced green onion instead. For the rest, I followed the recipe exactly.

One mistake I made was to divide the gelatin into three evenly divided blobs before mixing in the vegetables. Since loaf pans are wider at the top than at the bottom, you need more gelatin for the spinach layer than for the cabbage layer, and more for the cabbage layer than for the carrot layer. This meant that though the carrot layer was thoroughly enclosed in gelatin, the spinach layer was not. The recipe, I believe, assumes that you will intuitively figure that out, and maybe a cleverer cook would, but I did not. Other than that, this is an easy recipe to follow.

 

Of course, since this recipe has a photographed featured in JOJ, I had the added pressure of trying to make the recipe look like the picture, as my husband is very adamant that I need to make at least one gelatin dish that looks like what the book shows. He was not satisfied with the bits of spinach and cabbage sticking out of the gelatin matrix. For my money, I think it's pretty close.

I sliced the cabbage very finely, because no one wants to eat large chunks of raw cabbage, but I wish I would have taken the time to truly mince it because the long slices made it messy to cut this bad boy. Honestly, though, this loaf of gelatinous veggie mass won't cut cleanly no matter what you do.

The taste is, well, very salad-y. I'm glad I went with chicken broth instead of water, as it makes everything more umami-y. The celery flavor doesn't stand out all that much, which is fine. The green onion is extremely strong, though, so I would halve the quantity of it in any future attempts (which aren't likely, even though this isn't a disaster). The overall effect is fine, but rather plain.

Getting back to that mistake I made, though: the spinach and green onion, as they weren't completely coated in gelatin, started to deteriorate after about three days, after which point I started removing them entirely. The cabbage and carrot layers, though, held up fine for almost a week. Of course, if you serve this at a party (like a weirdo) all at once, it doesn't matter much, but otherwise I strongly suggest either divvying up your gelatin unevenly, as I described above, or just increasing the amount of broth or water you use and increasing the amount of gelatin and flavoring proportionately. That way you have plenty of gelatin to get that spinach all buried in there where it will stay nicely preserved for much longer if necessary, and look much neater in any case.

Here's how I first served the Vegetable Trio: as a side salad to a soup-salad-sandwich lunch. The sandwich was a grilled cheese on homemade peasant bread, and the soup is regular tomato soup. Now, raw vegetables in cold, clammy, savory gelatin isn't quite as enticing as hot, salty soup or a cheesy fried sandwich, but it certainly added virtue. That's one thing I've got to hand to this recipe--it is exquisitely healthy. If you want to pack all kinds of veggie goodness into one loaf pan, this is the way to do it. I also do really appreciate the geometry of the loaf pan-shaped, rectangularly layered salad to the side of soup in a round bowl.

And, of course, for all I'm complaining about it, Vegetable Trio is surprisingly edible. I ate it all (minus the spinach once it got some age on it). I can't even recommend against making it. If this is what you want, the recipe does what it says on the tin, so to speak. So congrats, General Foods, you exceeded my expectations by making a dish I truly feel neutral about.

"Gelatin" in the Wild: Jin Jin Passion Fruit Flavor Jelly

Howdy, Jigglers! I went to my local Asian grocery store recently, so you know what that means: a foodstuff similar to gelatin was to be had!

Now, I was not able to glean from the bag what the coagulating substance in Passion Fruit Flavor Jelly actually was, but I don't believe it was gelatin, as it was being kept at room temperature and the jelly was not liquified.

What I did clearly notice was a plethora of health and safety indications on the packaging, for example:

I was glad to see that this product is fully HACCP compliant. However, I was not so enthused by the following ominous warning:

Guess I've never seen a choking warning directed at the elderly before, but I suppose it makes sense. The prominence of the warning language is certainly offputting, though.

However, the jelly itself was firm, flavorful, and amazingly not weird at all. I quite like it, though I'm sure there are tons of preservatives in it that they should be warning you about. Maybe those warnings are in that other language that I can't read.

I'm usually not big on passionfruit-flavored items, but this has a bright, sweet flavor, almost citrusy but not quite, with a bold firm-set gelatin texture to go with it. I have thus far eaten these with a spoon and by squeezing it out of the cup (taking care to bite off a section and not swallow it whole, of course). And, to be fair, after having eaten it, I can understand both the temptation and the danger of swallowing it whole. These things are definitely big enough to clog up your throat. Regardless, I must say that Passion Fruit Flavor Jelly is the best jelly item I've picked up at the Asian grocer to date. Well done, Asia.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #112: Mint-Glazed Pears

Howdy, Jigglers! The next recipe from Joys of Jell-O on my list to make was Mint-Glazed Pears, which is a curious pairing of flavors, but I was hoping that it would turn out somewhat similar to the Cherry-Glazed Ham that I so dearly love (to date, it’s the only JOJ recipe I’ve made twice). I like mint, and I like pears, so even though General Foods clearly threw darts at a board to choose the flavor and the fruit to use in the recipe, how bad could it be?

 

The method is even similar to the one employed in Cherry-Glazed Ham: you make your gelatin solution, you pour it on the pears, then you stick it all in the oven, basting frequently, only this time we’re using the broiler instead of just roasting. I only had peppermint extract (though trust me, I’ve looked for regular mint extract around here for ages—I’m just not convinced it’s still made), but otherwise I used all the ingredients as called for in the recipe, even down to a packaged gelatin mix. This was mainly because I wanted the bright coloration, and every time I use green food coloring the result is just a little odd (see Avocado Pie).

 

Since you can serve the Mint-Glazed Pears warm or cold, and since you don’t have to wait for any gelatin to set, the first thing that struck me about this recipe is how fast it is. I had the whole thing done in half an hour, and that’s with attending to some other chores at the same time. You do have to be mindful of the broiler, though. I basted my pears every two minutes, and I got slight charring between 6 and 8 minutes in, so I didn’t end up broiling them more than 10 minutes in total. The charring as it turned out was fine, but I didn’t want to overdo it. I also had my oven rack very close to the broiler, though, so maybe if you put it on the second or third rung from the top, you would be able to broil for longer and get more infusion of the gelatin into the pears.

 

That’s what really makes this recipe shine: the pears absorb a lot of the gelatin mixture, making them bright green and full of flavor. They don’t taste like they have a glaze on them, as in a physical layer of gelatin on the outside (even when chilled), but they are quite minty and sweet. Not much of the lime flavor came through, surprisingly enough, as half a teaspoon of peppermint extract is a strong flavor to have to overcome.

 

What the recipe doesn’t really state, however, is that the amount of gelatin you make is easily enough to glaze three one-pound cans of halved pears. I didn’t think of this at the time, so I only used one can despite having three in my larders, instead molding and setting the rest of the gelatin (diluted with a touch of water). In retrospect, I wish I would’ve just kept glazing more pears, because the pears were much tastier than the minty lime gelatin by itself. Plus, the pears are fairly light as a dessert, so one can only yielded me three servings of three pear halves each. If I had made all three cans, I could’ve eaten Mint-Glazed Pears all week!

 

As far as the serving suggestion of serving hot and cold goes, I tried it both ways, and I have mixed feelings on the matter. I personally preferred these pears warm, but I feel like most people would enjoy them more served cold. In terms of when or where I would serve Mint-Glazed Pears, I would only recommend serving them to your more avant-garde or culinarily adventurous friends. Mint is a divisive flavor, and these pears are strongly minty, plus the toxic waste-green color on the pears might be offputting to people. The perfect occasion for these might be Easter brunch as a light fruit salad (it is in the Two-Way Recipe chapter, after all) or as a light picnic dessert. Since they are fairly durable, they would (and did, in my case) make a nice light dessert to stick in a lunchbox for work or school for a mint lover. A lot of Jell-O dishes get weepy when you store individual servings in your lunchbox for a while, but these stayed just as good as when they were freshly made.

 

I must commend General Foods’ work on this recipe: it’s a creative use of Jell-O, it’s interesting as a concept, and it’s delicious, a rare trifecta for the Joys of Jell-O. Now, I know from experience that they just got lucky with this particular combination of flavors and methods, but get lucky they did in this case. I’m sticking this one in my memory banks for future backyard barbeques and such, because even if no one else in attendance enjoys mint or unnaturally colorful fruit, I will happily scarf down any leftovers.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #75: Frosty Strawberry Pie

Howdy, Jigglers! Last weekend I decided I needed a fruit salad-type gelatin dish, so I set about looking around the pantry to figure out what components I already had. I randomly decided to check the freezer when I descried a long-forgotten pie crust underneath some frozen okra and beets. Thankfully, I don't think there are any recipes in JOJ that include beets or okra, so I pulled out the pie crust and determined to find a recipe to fill it, which brought me to the Frosty Strawberry Pie. It's got real fruit to make it somewhat virtuous, but then it's also got ice cream to make it extra rich. Though this seemed extremely similar to the Pastel Pie, I gave it a shot.

My theory on vintage Jell-O recipes has always been that the flavoring was significantly less intense back in the mid-20th century compared to its sweetness and intensity nowadays. Because of this, I reckoned that strawberry Jell-O plus strawberries PLUS strawberry ice cream would just be too much and went with vanilla instead. Trust me, it's plenty strawberry-y that way.

 

The method of this recipe is fairly straightforward: you dissolve the gelatin in boiling water, dissolve the ice cream into that mixture, let that get thick, then fold in the strawberries and pour everything into the (BTW already baked and cooled) pie crust and let set. Adding in the ice cream is a faux quick-set method because it helps the gelatin cool down faster, though in my case it certainly took longer than 25 minutes to thicken. Maybe my ice cream wasn't dense or cold enough or something. Also of note: I didn't put any kind of whipped cream topping on my pie, but it would have been a nice addition.

 

The pie turned out Pepto pink and very jiggly, as one would hope. I ended up with the pie slightly overfilled and also a single-serving mold full of the mixture, so if you make this I would recommend buying or making a deep-dish crust to contain all the jiggly goodness. The flavor is pretty nice. I wouldn't call it creamy, but the addition of ice cream makes it extra sweet, though the sweet-tart berries (I went for fresh strawberries, by the way) help balance it out. Again, whipped cream would make it more like a cream pie. On the first day, the crust stays crispy, but after that it softens and gets soggy very quickly. The leftovers actually reminded me of strawberry shortcake, which I love, so it didn't bother me so much, but if I were serving this to family or friends, I would serve it on the same day I made it.

 

The meringue variation would certainly be a good way to give a touch of sophistication to this pie, but what really interests me is the open-ended Other Frosty Pies option. An obvious one would be an orange flavor with orange Jell-O, melted creamsicles, and mandarin orange slices, but you could do a lot of mixing and matching here. Lemon Jell-O with raspberries and vanilla ice cream. Cherry Jell-O with cherries and chocolate ice cream. This wouldn't have been available in 1964, but peach Jell-O and peach slices with vanilla ice cream, or maybe with a pecan praline-type ice cream (then imagine that with some bourbon-spiked whipped cream on top). 

 

I'm having trouble thinking of a Jell-O flavor that would gel (pun absolutely intended) with ice cream flavors like peanut butter, cookies and cream, salted caramel, and the like, but you could potentially use unflavored gelatin and then only have to worry about the kind of fruit to use. Some of that could come out pretty gross, though, so experiment at your own risk.

This specific Frosty Pie recipe, however, is a perfectly normal flavor combination that works out pretty well in pie form. It's not my favorite recipe ever, but it's a good springtime big-brunch-with-family-and-friends kind of dessert. I might like it even better with lemon Jell-O instead of strawberry to make a strawberry-lemon pie, but you combine the fruit and the flavor that you love, and you won't be disappointed. So thanks, General Foods, for a decent fruity pie.