The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #45: Cherry Cheese Charmer

Howdy, Jigglers! This next recipe was chosen for me to make by my brother in law, who came to visit the other week and loves cherries. He never has mentioned that cherry is his favorite fruit flavor, but every time I ask what kind of dessert he wants me to make when he comes over, it is invariably cherry-rich, which works just fine for me. I was actually thankful to have somebody else around to choose a vintage Jell-O recipe for me, since if I were choosing for myself, I probably would have chosen something a little more daring and less promising.

Anyhow, this recipe is a combination of some of my favorite Jell-O techniques: whipped gelatin, dessert gelatin with just a hint of savory flavor, and fruit mixed in to fluffy gelatin. That said, I did have to make a couple of changes to the recipe. 

After the Coca Cola gelatin and the Cherry Charlotte Russe, I had had about enough of dark sweet cherries in gelatin. They always make the gelatin a brownish color, and their flavor is a little insipidly sweet and flat for me. So I replaced the can of dark sweet cherries with one can of cherry pie filling and one small jar of maraschino cherries. For the cherry syrup, I used the juice from the maraschino cherries, and I heated up the pie filling and added a quarter of a cup of water to it to get the syrup to separate from the fruit.

Then I made my usual substitution of two tablespoons of unflavored gelatin for the Jell-O, and the rest of the recipe I made as written.

Though I am sure the optional layering method would be attractive, I didn't want to make this recipe any more complicated than was necessary, so I didn't take that route. The method has a few steps, but it was easy enough to do. It took a bit of time to blend the cream cheese and the gelatin, it takes quite a few minutes to whip the gelatin sufficiently, and you have to watch carefully to make sure the gelatin doesn't set too much before whipping, but as long as you are patient and diligent about it, it's pretty simple. It also fit just about perfectly into my preferred mold.

The result? Fluffy. Rich. Attractive. And so pink! Just take a look.

I had maybe a quarter cup of gelatin leftover after filling my mold, just for your information. I was quite pleased, by the way, with how well this whipped mixture took the shape of the mold. Also pleasant was the degree to which the syrup from the cherries flavored the gelatin. It's always a challenge to substitute the flavoring provided by Jell-O in a way that is neither too weak or too strong, but this combination of maraschino cherry juice and cherry pie filling syrup worked terrifically.

As you can see, the cream cheese didn't blend totally seamlessly into the gelatin, but this  didn't result in weird chunks of pure cream cheese or anything, so I didn't mind whatsoever. My brother in law's reaction was also very positive.

The blurb about the recipe in the book is quite appropriate--this is a special recipe that certainly charmed me. In fact, it would be a great, somewhat lighter-than-usual Valentine's Day treat. I rate it as an excellent addition to the Joys of Jell-O anthology, though of course with the caveat that it would probably not be nearly as good with dark sweet cherries.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #1: Hawaiian Dessert

Howdy, Jigglers! At long last I was able to return to the very first recipe in Joys of Jell-O: Hawaiian Dessert. I was planning to do the first recipe first, as I did all the other recipes in numerical order for a good while when I was starting this adventure, but I skipped it due to not having a blender. Now I have a very nice blender, so that and having a leftover can of pineapple finally convinced me that it was time for recipe #1.

When it says that this dish is ready to serve quickly, they aren't kidding. I made the recipe as written, only substituting unflavored gelatin and the juice of one lime for lime Jell-O. If I made this again, though, I would definitely add a tablespoon or two of sugar. It was dead simple to make, but I was in for a big surprise when I tried to extricate the gelatin from the blender: due to the ice and efficient blending, the gelatin was already completely set once the blender turned off, so when I tried pouring it out of the blender, absolutely nothing came out. After a couple of moments of disbelief, I had to scoop the stuff out, and then it was ready to serve. I refrigerated it anyway, but it did not set up further.

Do you see how this dessert looks a little like shredded, wet insulation? Well, that's sort of what it tastes like. It is tart-sweet, but the overwhelming impression it gives you is chunky. Even when judiciously blended, pineapple stays slightly fibrous and, well, just chunky, and the gelatin keeps the whole mixture solid, which strongly reminded me of insulation for some reason, like if you flavored and moistened that fluffy stuff in your walls then ate it.

That resemblance aside, this dish isn't bad--it's just not very good, either. I like the flavor combination of pineapple, lime, milk, and almond, but the texture is so offputting that I couldn't truly enjoy it.

The appearance of the Hawaiian Dessert is a bit strange, too. Since it set up immediately upon being blended, I had no choice but to pile it up in glasses, which does make it look fluffy, I guess, but it certainly doesn't have the sleek, clean look of most gelatin.

If you want some tropical flavor and need a gelatin dessert FAST, I recommend the Hawaiian Dessert, except I think it would be better with a little extra sugar and some coconut milk in place of dairy milk, or at least half-and-half for more creaminess. However, this recipe is one of the lowest on the list of gelatin dishes that I would make again. The flavors just aren't enough to overcome the texture. Sorry, General Foods.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #37: Cherry Charlotte Russe

Howdy, Jigglers! After making the Tuna Salad, I was ready for a dessert gelatin recipe again, and in particular one featuring ladyfingers, since I had a package of ladyfingers lying around and ladyfingers + Jell-O is always a wonderful combination. It's like a cheater's sponge cake. In the end I chose Cherry Charlotte Russe, a creamy, fruity dish studded with nuts and served in individual serving dishes.

The ingredients for this dish were fairly easy to replicate in a healthier fashion. I left the ladyfingers, whipped cream, and pecans exactly as they were, but instead of cherry Jell-O, I used unflavored gelatin in pureed cherries and two tablespoons of sugar. For the cherries I bought a bag of frozen cherries, thawed them, and then blended them up in a blender, which worked well and produced enough liquid to make the appropriate amount of gelatin. However, if you use a different type of cherry, your sugar requirements may change--maraschino cherries, for instance, would need no additional sugar, while tart cherries would need much more than a couple of tablespoons.

The method for making this recipe is standard and simple; I bloomed the gelatin in the cherry puree, added sugar, heated it up until very warm to dissolve the gelatin and sugar, refrigerated it in a bowl until slightly thick, whipped the cream in the meantime, folded  the cream and nuts into the gelatin, placed some ladyfingers into my serving dishes, scooped the gelatin mixture into said dishes, then refrigerated it all again.

The only tricky part of making this recipe, and most Jell-O recipes in general, is catching the gelatin at the correct intermediate point of setting. If you want the gelatin to only reach the slightly thickened, very thick, or set but not firm stages, you really have to keep an eye on it, as the time required for it to reach those stages varies depending upon the type of container it's in, its position in your fridge, how concentrated the actual gelatin is, and its temperature at the start of the setting process. But it always seems to me that the more frequently I check on a batch of setting gelatin, the slower it sets, but if I know it's going to take a while and I wait a long while to check it, it winds up too hardened by the time I check. Gelatin that sets too much can always be heated slightly to resoften it, but getting it right can be a little frustrating.

In this case, my gelatin may have been just slightly too soft when I mixed in the cream and pecans because it didn't marble all that attractively, but it still set up fine in the end. 

You can see, roughly, the size of serving dishes I used for all of this creamy goodness, but keep in mind that this recipe makes eleven servings of that size.

The good news is that the Cherry Charlotte Russe is so tasty that you won't have to worry about it going to waste! The cream lightens up the gelatin quite a bit while still being satisfying, and the ladyfingers really make it a special treat with their sweetness.

This dessert would be more than suitable for a spring picnic or family gathering. It feels indulgent, but, at least the way I made it, it's fairly low sugar for a dessert, and it has some real fruit and dairy in it, so it's fairly low guilt, too.

So, once again, thanks to General Foods for coming up with this winner of a recipe.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #167: Tuna Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! Today I bring you one of the JOJ recipes I was looking forward to the least--a category which is almost entirely populated by s e a f o o d. My husband and I had just gotten back from the grocery store one day last week, and I was unpacking a couple of cans of tuna when I unthinkingly asked my husband to pick out the next Jell-O recipe for me to make. He immediately pointed at the tiny can in my hand and said, "I know there are tuna Jell-O recipes. You've got it, so you have to make it happen."

For some reason my camera was not cooperating with me on photographing both the recipe and the actual salad--please bear with my cell phone photos.

We then flipped through JOJ and found Tuna Salad, which conveniently also required several other ingredients I had on hand, like olives, celery, mayonnaise, and onion. I just had to grab a cucumber and I was ready to go. At this juncture my husband also challenged me to eat the entirety of the tuna salad since there have been a few of these recipes (mostly involving tomatoes) that I have been unable to finish due to gagging too much.

I secretly was okay with the idea of the tuna salad because I recently got a fish-shaped mold for a song and was itching to try it out. There was a bit of an obstacle to overcome, though, which was how to replicate the flavor of Celery Flavor Jell-O, which hasn't been manufactured for half a century. After debating pureeing some celery to make celery juice (too much work!), I decided to replace the salt in the recipe with celery salt and call it a day, which worked out fine. Other than using the celery salt and unflavored gelatin in place of Jell-O (a word to the wise: you can find boxes of the salad Jell-O flavors on eBay, but I would certainly recommend against consuming their contents), I followed the recipe exactly, except I accidentally got a lime instead of a lemon.

The recipe was very simple to make. The only problem was that I was worried about the onion. This is the first Jell-O recipe I have made including onion, and I thought if anything was going to make the salad completely inedible, it would be raw onion bits. So I took it really easy when I was adding the onion to avoid overpowering the other flavors.

 I was pleased with how well the chunky salad molded, though it certainly looked less than appetizing on the whole. Regardless, much to my surprise (and perhaps slightly to my husband's chagrin), this salad is simply delicious! It is refreshing, rather light, and not too fishy. Plus, the gelatin works much better than your typical tuna salad at keeping the vegetables crispy, which it did all week long. The hint of lime even shone through on the palate, while the onion did not. Over all, though, I was flabbergasted by how good the olive slices were in completing the dish. I heartily advise against omitting them, as their brininess contrasts beautifully with the creamy gelatin and the other, milder vegetables.

Clearly I had no trouble finishing off the tuna salad after all! This recipe was shockingly good for what it is, and I don't even care for regular tuna salad. I also believe the De Luxe version of the salad sounds good, though I don't know how well gelatin would keep diced apple fresh. This cookbook sure does love tuna with apples, though.

In short, General Foods actually made a competent seafood Jell-O recipe. I don't know if it was brutal amounts of talent or brutal amounts of luck that did it, but I do know that I would make this again someday in a heartbeat, which is the exact opposite of what I was anticipating with Tuna Salad.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #89: Frosty Melon

Howdy, Jigglers! Of all of the recipes in JOJ with accompanying photos, Frosty Melon was probably the one I have been looking forward to the most. It looks like an abstract sculpture, and it's made up of only melon, gelatin with fruit, and cream cheese. What could go wrong?

I also love that this recipe is in the "Two-Way Salads" chapter of the book. All of these recipes basically make me think the same thing, which is that they are for people who want to think of their fruity desserts as healthy side dishes. This is a delusion with which I sympathize completely, as I also will use any excuse to play down my sweets addiction.

In any case, to make this fruity treat, I started out with a honeydew melon, a cup of mango nectar and unflavored gelatin as the filling, a can of fruit cocktail with its syrup, and of course some cream cheese. As a side note, for the longest time I had only eaten honeydew in fruit mixes and never enjoyed it, but if you get a whole melon and eat it that way, it tastes ten times more sweet and juicy than its pre-cut version, so if you haven't tried it that way, I wholly recommend it.

Making this recipe is remarkably simple, though it leaves you with a lot of leftover gelatin mix. I had enough to fill five individual serving dishes. If you wanted to avoid this, you could scoop out some of the melon flesh before filling the melon, though that would leave you with extra melon to deal with. 

 I was heartily pleased with how the final product turned out aesthetically. When I first got it assembled, it just looked like a volleyball, like so:

But once you cut into it, the concentric rings of fruit and cheese are quite nice. It does look like something one would eat in the very distant future, but who doesn't want a circular treat sometimes?

The Frosty Melon delivers in terms of taste as well. The unsweetened cream cheese accentuates the sweetness of the melon, fruit, and gelatin, and the textures mesh together surprisingly well. The cheese also helps this otherwise light dessert salad become a little more filling.

Another thought that occurred to me is that this dish would be a tasty way to model the earth or another planet for kids. You would just fill the center of a cantaloupe with red gelatin and color the cream cheese to look like the planet's surface. I love it when science and the culinary arts combine!

Whether it's for a geology lesson, a volleyball party, or just for a sweet mod picnic, the Frosty Melon is a superb "salad." Kudos to the General Foods team, and until next time, stay frosty.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #51: Orange-Mallow Ring

Howdy, Jigglers! After making the Salmon Mousse, I needed a refresher of a normal, fruity gelatin recipe, and the Orange-Mallow Ring was a simple, fun recipe that met those criteria perfectly.

Basically, this molded dessert is orange-pineapple gelatin to which mandarin orange sections (or fresh orange sections) and quartered or mini marshmallows are added. I of course substituted unflavored gelatin for Jell-O, and for the flavoring I used ginger ale as directed and added the syrup from the can of mandarin oranges and some juice from a can of pineapple that I conveniently happened to have on hand. The result was a surpringly brightly colored ring mold studded with fruit and fluffy marshmallow which was as simply pleasant to eat as it was to look at.

I was honestly rather surprised that General Foods did not instruct the addition of any further elements into this dish. Some nuts or fish or something seems like it would be more up their alley. 

At any rate, this dessert was a plain old-fashioned good idea on the part of General Foods. I especially like the combination of oranges and marshmallow. If using fresh oranges, this would provide a very tasty contrast between the tangy oranges and the marshmallows.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #149: Salmon Mousse

Howdy, Jigglers! Though today's recipe certainly sounds odd as a Jell-O dish, I had been nonetheless excited to try it for quite a while. Part of this is due to never having eaten a mousse in my life, but part of it is also due to this recipe being a cool, one-dish, low-carb meal in itself, and thus perfect for summer lunches. 

Salmon Mousse is just one variation of mousse-type salads included in this recipe. The others are chicken, ham, and tuna. However, I had not had salmon for a long time, and I had eaten a LOT of celery lately (which is the main vegetable in the other variations), so I went with the salmon, and I didn't regret it.

I essentially made this recipe as written, only substituting out unflavored gelatin with half a lemon's worth of juice for the lemon Jell-O. The basic method is simple: you prepare gelatin, adding cayenne pepper and vinegar, let it cool a bit, mix it with whipped cream and mayonnaise, and then fold in the salmon and diced cucumber. At this point you mold it and let it set.

However, I do take issue with the recipe to some extent, because while the method produced a tasty salmon salad with gelatin in it, it did not seem like much of a mousse. I believe a better way to proceed is to let the gelatin set until it has eggwhite consistency,  whip it, then add the cream and mayo and whip all three together, after which the rest of the ingredients can be incorporated. 

This way you 1) avoid globs of random gelatin strewn into the salad, 2) get a lighter, fluffier texture in general, and 3) get a better mold shape. As is, the salad somewhat adhered to the shape of my Bundt pan, but with the gelatin-mayo-cream mixture at a higher percentage of the volume of the salad mixture, the molding would be more apparent.

However, on the whole, this recipe is a success. It is a creamy, well spiced molded salad that isn't gross, and I am very grateful for that considering that I made this as my main lunch dish for a whole week, so I have to give kudos to the General Foods team for at least one sane seafood Jell-O recipe.