The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #101: Applesauce De Luxe

Howdy, Jigglers! This recipe was chosen at the behest of my husband, who claimed it sounded "kinda good." It is quite unsual for him to say that about a recipe from this particular cookbook, so it had to be made. Applesauce De Luxe is nothing more than molded applesauce with Jell-O-based fruit flavoring, in either raspberry or cherry, and a splash of lemon juice, but of course I had to tinker with the recipe a little bit.

As per usual I replaced Jell-O with unflavored gelatin. I couldn't find a 15 oz can of applesauce, so I used four 4 oz snack cups of applesauce so I could pack the leftover cups (they come in packs of six) in my lunches some other time. To get the fruit flavoring, I just included a pack of fresh raspberries, adding three tablespoons of white sugar because I used unsweetened applesauce, fresh lemon juice, and plain fruit, though this can be adjusted to taste and depending on the other ingredients used. 

I tried to get some red color out of the raspberries by mashing a few of them with a spoon and then mixing into the applesauce, but it didn't really work out. I imagine you could get the mold to be pinkish if you ran the fruits through the blender (especially if you use cherries).

Other than subbing out a few ingredients, I made this recipe as written, blooming the gelatin in the water before heating, then blending into the applesauce and juice and mixing in the fruit. I ended up using about a tablespoon and a half of gelatin, which was perfect for getting nice sturdy molds with this recipe.

And it turned out great! Basically the gelatin just tastes like applesauce with raspberries in it, but it looks great in individual molds, especially with the contrast of the applesauce and the fruit. I would not recommend serving with mayo or sour cream as the recipe states, but these rings would be simply delicious with some marshmallow-y fruit salad piled in the center. All told, this recipe made enough gelatin to fill eight individual ring molds plus two wine glasses--I just could not get any decent pictures of that for some reason.

I also must mention that this recipe is in the Two-Way Recipes section, meaning that it is meant to be served as a dessert or a salad. It makes a simple fruity dessert, but I imagine it would work unmolded atop fresh spinach and topped with pecans, blue cheese, and poppyseed dressing, too, though not so much if you are using regular saccharine Jell-O.

Basically, though, this is a solid recipe. I had never thought about combining applesauce with other fruits before, but it does add to the experience since prepackaged applesauce can be just the slightest bit boring, as we all know, and plus, molded applesauce is much prettier than just a blob of applesauce in a bowl! Thumbs up to General Foods for a simple two-way recipe that actually makes sense.

Way Out There Recipe #1: Molded Beet and Herb Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! So, I fully realize that between The Joys of Jell-O and the other three gelatin-specific cookbooks in my collection, I have enough Jell-O on my to-do list to keep me busy for a long time. However, sometimes you just stumple upon an opportunity you can't pass up, and so it was when I saw this beet-and-herb salad on Food52. 

Besides being very pretty (plus I really dig the mold they used), it appealed to me in the sense that I had some fermented beets along with beet brine in the fridge that needed to be finished up, and I have fresh herbs growing outside, so this seemed like a great way to get a lot of veggies and probiotics into my meals at no additional cost, and I can never argue with that.

The recipe is very simple to follow, though I did make two changes: I added my julienned fermented beets to the beet layer for extra beetiness, and I substituted worschester sauce for half of the balsamic vinegar. When I initially read this recipe, it reminded me flavorwise of a drinkable borscht I used to get from a Polish restaurant in the city where I used to live, which was a salty, beety, beefy broth, and I knew worschester could provide some of that umami-rich oomph to the flavor of this gelatin as well.

Apart from those minor changes, I used a food processor to chop the herbs instead of a blender because I still don't have a blender, but I recommend using a real blender if you can. I think it will extract the green color and various flavors from the herbs better. As it was, the herbed part of the salad tastes fine, but it stayed chunky and didn't turn green, so I added a drop of food coloring to get the effect. More on that later.

I was so taken by the appearance of this salad as one big mold that I wanted to find a way to make it work in my Bundt pan regardless of my previous struggles to get it to make molds attractive. So, inspired by the super-hard Jell-O I had recently at my local Chinese buffet, I added an extra tablespoon of gelatin to each layer of the salad to test if that would make it work better without imparting that classic musty gelatin taste, and I am proud to report that this part of the recipe test worked out phenomenally.

The salad indeed turned out firm and pretty, so I can confirm that you merely need extra gelatin to turn a Bundt pan into a decent mold. It looks much more purple in person than in the photos. Something important to note about the appearance of this dish if you plan on making it, though, is that the purple color of the beet layer will bleed into the herb layer after a couple of days in the refrigerator, so if you plan on making this for a party or some other such occasion, it's best to make it the same day or the day before for the aesthetic effect.

Tastewise, this dish is surprisingly good, though very salty due to my use of beet brine instead of beet juice. If you also wish to use beet brine, I recommend adding no salt to the herb layer for balance as well as eating the gelatin on some sort of unsalted cracker like a water cracker. My herbs mostly consisted of oregano and rosemary, but I also added thyme and green onions. I wanted to add parsley, but the day I went out to harvest the herbs I found that my parsley had been chomped back to nothing by the local wildlife. If you like dill, I imagine that this would be a perfect use for it.

All in all, this recipe is worth trying and does showcase the versatility of gelatin in an unexpected way, if you like beets, that is.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #177: Herb-Glazed Sandwiches

Howdy Jigglers! Today I bring you Herb-Glazed Sandwiches, a recipe straight out of the annals of tea party history and, frankly, one of the most interestingly strange ideas from The Joys of Jell-O. This one has haunted me for a long time, but I didn't have any other inspiration for what to make for lunch last weekend, so I figured I had no excuse not to make these. The recipe basically involves covering one of a number of savory open-faced sanwich variations with a tangy spiced gelatin glaze and chilling until firm.
 

I really liked the idea of the corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich, as well as the liver pate and egg, but ultimately I went with the roast beef and tomato to keep things simple. If you want to see the results of the chicken and bacon option, see this blog post from Mid-Century Menu.

This really is a simple recipe to follow: put some herbs on the stove to simmer, strain your mixture and add gelatin and more spices, then chill until syrupy. In the meantime, construct your sandwiches, then pour the gelatin over once it's ready. Everything goes into the fridge for a while, and voila--herb-glazed sandwiches. The only tricky part is covering the sandwiches with the glaze. It likes to slip off, which makes it difficult to coat the entire sandwich surface, but it's not a big deal.

In my case, I altered the recipe just slightly. I used unflavored gelatin and a generous splash of lemon extract in place of Jell-O so it wouldn't turn out sweet. I also omitted the dill and multiplied the cayenne by eight or so due to taste preferences. For the sandwiches themselves, I used multi-grain bread with no butter because that's what I had, and for the same reason I arranged some sliced cherry and cocktail tomatoes on the sandwiches instead of big slicers. I think it turned out a little mid-mod, don't you think?

Despite the foreignness of the idea of this recipe, the sandwiches taste pretty good. The glaze acts like a slightly jigglier mustard with its vinegar and spices, and it's hard to go wrong with roast beef and tomato. Even with an overly zealous amount of cayenne, though, the spiciest part of the whole thing was the horseradish by far, and I had spread it out as thin as it could get. The only really disappointing part, though, was that I didn't taste the herb flavors too clearly.

The sandwiches do look nice. They of course look shiny and wet, but that's fetching in its way.

As you can see, in my experience the quantity of glaze yielded by this recipe is just enough for eight sandwiches, although that will vary depending on bread size.

There are a few further alterations I would make to this recipe, were I to make it again (and who knows!): I would use the juice of one lemon in place of the lemon extract and one tablespoon of the vinegar, I would add another bay leaf and some more peppercorns and simmer all of that for fifteen or twenty minutes to really get their flavor out, I would go out of my way to make sure the bread was buttered, and, if I were serving these all at once to family or guests, I would toast the bread before assembling the sandwiches. 

After four days the sandwiches start to get soggy, but they hold up remarkably well before that, in part thanks to the preservative powers of gelatin. All in all, this is quite the success in the savory gelatin category, which makes it the first savory recipe I've done from TJOJ that has even remotely worked. Congrats, General Foods!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #28: Plum Pudding

Howdy Jigglers!* Today I bring you another completely out-of-season gelatin dessert, namely Plum Pudding. Yes, I know, that's a Christmas treat, but citron was on sale a couple of months ago, and I didn't think leaving it to stew in its juices for a full year would help the dish's flavor, so here we go!

Yes, you read that right: this dessert is a bread pudding-like dish with none other than Grape Nuts cereal to give body to the pudding, and yes, you can make it a figgy pudding. Honestly, the thought of cooking with Grape Nuts was enough to pique my oddball Jell-O stunts interest.

I prepared this recipe almost exactly as written, except I omitted the nuts because I didn't have any on hand, so to fill the space I added a little extra raisins, prunes, citron, and Grape Nuts. Also, as per usual, I replaced lemon Jell-O with lemon extract and unflavored gelatin, plus a tablespoonful of brown sugar.

One particularly exciting aspect of this recipe is getting to use my new mini gelatin molds for the first time! Previously I've only made Jell-O molds in a Bundt pan, which is just not the same. You can't see the scalloped edge detail on these molds too clearly due to the granular look of the pudding, but I was happy to have the chance to test those bad boys out, and sure enough, a purpose-made mold is much easier to work with for this purpose!

These molds smell and taste just like Christmas with all the sugary spiced fruit and just a hint of citrus. After tasting a bit of Grape Nuts by itself, I was deeply concerned about the bran flavor ruining the dish, but I think it is a perfect foil to the saccharine fruits. You can't even really taste it since it soaks up the sweetened gelatin. Of note, I think this pudding would be great with chopped pecans or walnuts.

As strange as it may look and sound, this Plum Pudding actually does taste very good. The gelatin only really holds the components together and makes the Grape Nuts soften, so it doesn't taste much like Jell-O texturally, which is good in this case. It is very strongly spiced, though, which would make this a perfect contender for the a la mode treatment. And if you can't find citron, I wouldn't fret too much--it added a little crunchiness to the final product, but the flavor it adds is negligible. All in all, I think this would definitely be an acceptable alternative to a traditional plum pudding at Christmastime, and plus, it's a holiday dessert with all the nutrition and fiber of Grape Nuts impregnated with a superfood (gelatin), only with fruit added! It's a win-win!

After reading about the optional custard or hard sauce in the recipe, I immediately started looking up what in the world a hard sauce is. It turns out that it is an old-fashioned, sweet, buttery sauce that is British in origin. After some deliberation I made a version of this sauce that I found on Southern Living's website. While this sauce would be an even better accompaniment if spiked with rum or rum extract, I made it as written with only vanilla and (freshly grated) nutmeg, except with half the butter since I ran out. Even made in this relatively tame fashion, it served very well to dress up the pudding, though it does look like the kind of brown gravy that one would serve with potatoes. I guess I'm mostly just glad that they didn't call for serving it with mayonnaise...



*This is my new nickname for all those avid readers of The Actual Joys of Jell-O out there.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #169: Cranberry Sauce

Even though we have a long time to wait until Thanksgiving, I can never get enough cranberry goodness. So, when I was looking for a vintage Jell-O recipe to make without having to buy many ingredients, my eye was immediately drawn to the several cranberry-based gelatin recipes in TJOJ, specifically the Cranberry Sauce, as it requires only cranberries, water, gelatin, sugar, and salt. 

 

Now, of course, I wanted to make this dish as crantastic as possible, so I replaced the water and flavored Jell-O for unflavored gelatin and cranberry juice with a splash of lemon extract. I also ran out of sugar before I hit the 2/3 cup mark, so I just left it at that, thinking the juice would provide enough extra sweetness.

 

The recipe is relatively straightforward, except that I think I made an error in the sieving stage. When straining the cranberry mixture, I had a hard time expressing much pulp, so I added everything from the top of the strainer bowl back in as well as what little pulp I could scrape off of the bottom, including the skins. That made the texture a little strange, and added some extra tartness. I reckon it's just a little extra fiber, but if I were making this again, I would just strain the mixture and not worry about getting the pulp back in. I don't think it makes a lot of difference.

The end result is truly a strong expression of what cranberries are. It tastes like canned cranberry sauce times thirty. I actually have to pour extra sugar or honey on top to make it pleasant to eat, so I strongly recommend adding all the recommended sugar if using 100% cranberry juice. If you are concerned about using too much sugar, I would recommend using half cranberry juice and half water, and in that case, I think you could get away with half a cup or so. I do recommend adding a little lemon extract, and for once I don't mind the salt called for in the recipe.

This dish is quite pretty (it would look gorgeous served in a crystal bowl), and for me it made eight relish-sized servings. I think it would go great with turkey or any other poultry, as well as with pork. While I will always default to my traditional cranberry relish (one bag of fresh cranberries, one orange cut into eighths, and sugar to taste, whizzed in a food processor for approximately five seconds or until finely diced, then left to stew in its juices for at least an hour), this is easily my second choice for a cranberry dish to go along with white meat, as it is potent and has a much more glaze-like texture than the canned variety even when fully set, plus it doesn't look like it came out of can.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I tried this recipe with its serving suggestion of a mint garnish and mayonnaise. Why mayonnaise? I don't know, it seems like mayonnaise was a hit fashion accessory in the 1960s, as they recommend serving about half of the recipes in this book with it. Anyhow, I actually enjoyed eating the sauce this way, as the mayonnaise does make it creamy and it cuts the sourness significantly. It also makes it taste a bit more savory. The mint doesn't add much flavorwise, but it certainly looks nice.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #180: Frosted Grapes

Straight out of the annals of New Ways with Jell-O Gelatin comes this recipe for Frosted Grapes, a very creative idea for a fruity, gelatin-y garnish or light dessert. 

Now, of course, after seeing this recipe, I had a few concerns: 1) how could I replicate the flavoring-and-coloring aspect of Jell-O without using it? 2) is the raw egg really necessary? and 3) would this all be worth it? I mean, how much exactly could gelatin and some flavoring add to grapes?

To tackle the first point, I decided to make two batches of frosted grapes, the first with "coloring" (in the form of red sugar crystals mixed in with granulated sugar and the gelatin), and the second without, using only granulated sugar and gelatin. As far as adding a flavoring agent goes, I decided to mix about a teaspoon of lemon extract in with the egg white to avoid dissolving the sugar, since lemon was the only flavor I had around that seemed like it would go with grapes. The quantities of all these ingredients are really going to depend on how many grapes you need to frost. In my case, I made around a pound and two teaspoons of gelatin and a couple of tablespoons of total sugar was way too much.

After several minutes of deliberation, I went ahead and used raw egg white. Though we live in an age of intense scrutiny over food safety issues, raw eggs have been eaten forever, and I wasn't about to let a petty little issue like salmonella deter me from accurately recreating vintage Jell-O goodness.

Other than the aforementioned ingredient substitutions, I made the recipe as written, and as I was getting the grape clusters sprinkled, I immediately noticed a few things. For one, when I mixed in the lemon extract with the egg white, whitish streaks appeared in the egg. I think acid cooks eggs a little bit. This didn't end up affecting the end product, but I
Now, of course, after seeing this recipe, I had a few concerns: 1) how could I replicate the flavoring-and-coloring aspect of Jell-O without using it? 2) is the raw egg really necessary? and 3) would this all be worth it? I mean, how much exactly could gelatin and some flavoring add to grapes?

To tackle the first point, I decided to make two batches of frosted grapes, the first with "coloring" (in the form of red sugar crystals mixed in with granulated sugar and the gelatin), and the second without, using only granulated sugar and gelatin. As far as adding a flavoring agent goes, I decided to mix about a teaspoon of lemon extract in with the egg white to avoid dissolving the sugar, since lemon was the only flavor I had around that seemed like it would go with grapes. The quantities of all these ingredients are really going to depend on how many grapes you need to frost. In my case, I made around a pound and two teaspoons of gelatin and a couple of tablespoons of total sugar was way too much.

After several minutes of deliberation, I went ahead and used raw egg white. Though we live in an age of intense scrutiny over food safety issues, raw eggs have been eaten forever, and I wasn't about to let a petty little issue like salmonella deter me from accurately recreating vintage Jell-O goodness.

Other than the aforementioned ingredient substitutions, I made the recipe as written, and as I was getting the grape clusters sprinkled, I immediately noticed a few things. For one, when I mixed in the lemon extract with the egg white, whitish streaks appeared in the egg. I think acid cooks eggs a little bit. This didn't end up affecting the end product, but I was careful not to get any of that part of the egg white on the grapes. I recommend using a flavor extract that is not terribly acidic. Almond, rum, or vanilla extracts might be preferable, for example.

Secondly, I noticed that it's fairly difficult to sprinkle the sugar-gelatin coating on evenly, especially with the larger sugar crystals. Even if you don't allow the excess egg white to drain off much, it's tough to get it all to stick to the grapes. I definitely recommend setting a side a good chunk of time to get this step done, especially if you are making a larger batch. Also, in regards to the stickiness of the grapes, I highly recommend using egg white instead of water, like some similar recipes recommend--after the grapes dry, they need the adhesive nature of the egg to keep it all together.

Finally, after letting the grapes dry in the refrigerator all afternoon, the frosted grapes were nice and frosty.
was careful not to get any of that part of the egg white on the grapes. I recommend using a flavor extract that is not terribly acidic. Almond, rum, or vanilla extracts might be preferable, for example.

Secondly, I noticed that it's fairly difficult to sprinkle the sugar-gelatin coating on evenly, especially with the larger sugar crystals. Even if you don't allow the excess egg white to drain off much, it's tough to get it all to stick to the grapes. I definitely recommend setting a side a good chunk of time to get this step done, especially if you are making a larger batch. Also, in regards to the stickiness of the grapes, I highly recommend using egg white instead of water, like some similar recipes recommend--after the grapes dry, they need the adhesive nature of the egg to keep it all together.

Finally, after letting the grapes dry in the refrigerator all afternoon, the frosted grapes were nice and frosty.

And I think they turned out nicely! I love the way they look like grapes left out during a frost (maybe that should have been obvious, but hey), except not all shriveled. You can see in this photo that some of the clusters are only white and some are white and red. I think the pure white ones turned out much prettier. Maybe it would be more effective to use the neon-hued Jell-O for these if you were serving them to a teenager's slumber party, but otherwise I can't imagine Technicolor Frosted Grapes yielding the same effect.

In this picture you can see more clearly how, despite my best efforts, the grapes did not get totally covered in sugar and gelatin, especially the red sugar crystals. In retrospect, though, I think that adds to the frosted effect, since frost also often falls on one side of an object. In terms of taste, these grapes were surprisingly good. They taste like they have a sugar crust, and the lemon flavor comes through just enough to be noticed through the grapes's juiciness. If it weren't for the egg-cooking issue, I would strongly recommend a fruity extract like lemon or raspberry to go with these. 

Moreover, though, is that these grapes look and taste fancy. They would be a real treat at a wedding reception as a garnish, especially an autumn wedding at a vineyard or something like that. But even as a garnish for your lunch at work on a Thursday in April, they make you feel a little more classy, and I think we all need a little of that every now and again. For how few ingredients this recipe requires, it certainly elevates the humble grape to a more formal and dessert-like state. Plus, they last a good long time, basically as long as your grapes would have lasted in the first place.

So, in conclusion, Frosted Grapes is a worthwhile recipe with numerous applications and potential variations, and it really highlights how versatile gelatin is.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #67: Fruit Pie Unlimited

Today I bring you one of those beautiful Jell-O recipes that is perfect for those occasions when you want dessert but don't want to shell out a lot of cash for ingredients: the Fruit Pie Unlimited.

As the recipe details, you can make this simple fruit pie formula with any number of fruit-and-gelatin combinations, but based on the photo from the recipe book, I wanted to make the peach version. Of course, instead of orange Jell-O, I used beef gelatin with a combination of peach nectar and the syrup from the peach cans to make it extra peachy.

I already had a frozen pastry crust in the freezer, so I decided to use that. Since the recipe is not terribly specific about ingredient quantities, I cut up two cans of peach halves (though two cans of peach slices would have been easier, I know), reserving the syrup. If you want to use a deep-dish pie crust, this would be a perfect quantity, but it ended up being too much to fit in my crust. As far as the gelatin goes, I used two-and-a-half teaspoons of gelatin, and that seemed about perfect, and to replace the two cups of water, one can of peach nectar and the syrup from both peach cans ended up being exactly the right quantity.

Other than those ingredient swaps, adding a small quantity of food coloring (five drops of yellow and one drop of red), adding a splash of almond extract, and omitting the extra sugar, I followed the recipe exactly. It was easy to make, and it turned out really nicely, even though I didn't go the extra mile and arrange the peach slices in concentric rings.

One note about gelatin making in general, though. These recipes always call for starting with half boiling liquid and half cold liquid. When you add gelatin to boiling liquid all in one go, it is very easy for it to clump up or get stuck to the bottom of your pan. What I recommend is divide your liquid in half, put half in a saucepan, and then sprinkle your gelatin over top. Let it sit for five minutes or so to give it time to "bloom" or absorb some moisture, then heat the pan up, stirring occasionally. You don't even need to get it to a boil; if it's hot enoughto start to steam, and the gelatin dissolves, you're good to take it off the heat and add the mixture to the cold liquid. This activates the gelatin just fine without risking it clumping, and only heating up half of the liquid then adding it to the cold liquid helps it set faster.

Those ripples on the surface of the gelatin are from the plastic wrap I used to cover the pie as it set. If you had the lid from a cake stand or something similar, that would be ideal to protect the pie from unwanted fridge odors while keeping the surface smooth. Alternately, I guess you could use something like plastic wrap or aluminum foil to mold shapes or patterns into the surface of the gelatin if desired--kind of like shaping scraps of pie crust and arranging them on top of your pie, only with fewer calories!

As I mentioned, the gelatin mixture ended up being too much to fit into one pie crust, so I ended up making three Fruit Cups Unlimited as well.

As far as the quality of the final product goes, I quite enjoyed this dessert. It is light and refreshing, perfect for a summer picnic or cookout, while getting a classic, rich dessert feel from the pie crust. If I could change anything about the way I made it, I would add another splash of almond extract and maybe a tablespoon of honey or sugar to the gelatin just to make it a little more flavorful, though between the peach nectar and the peach syrup, it already has quite a bit of sugar.

The only thing about this recipe that warrants a word of caution is that, while gelatin has a wonderfully long shelf life, gelatin + pie crust does not. During the first day of the gelatin being set, the crust stayed nice and crispy, but after that day it absorbed moisture from the gelatin and softened. My advice is to serve a pie like this at a gathering or event where it will all get eaten in one day instead of making it for just a few people to eat over several days.

Overall, this recipe is a winner. It's simple, sure, but it works, and I can easily see all of the other fruit-and-flavoring combinations working as well. I would be particularly interested in trying something like raspberries in pomegranate juice, or a tropical trio of pineapple chunks (canned, not fresh!) and sliced bananas suspended in coconut milk. For that, I would use something like Jumex Coconut-Pineapple nectar ramped up with a little coconut extract and sugar as the liquid.

Anyway, Fruit Pie Unlimited was a real treat, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, easy, healthy-ish, or cheap dessert.