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!