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.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #126: Fruited Perfection

Howdy, Jigglers! Today we are going to talk about a Jell-O recipe that I put off for the longest time. Fruited Perfection is a molded salad featuring pineapple (no sweat), nuts (still perfectly normal), olives (I can deal with that), and cabbage (what are we doing now, General Foods?) all mixed together in a gelatin matrix of consomme (what is this?) flavored with vinegar and tropical Jell-O flavors. Of course. You might start to recognize why I postponed making this recipe for so long.

But the deal here at the Actual Joys of Jell-O is that I make all the recipes, so I couldn't skip it, and I just happened to have some broth I could use to make consomme, so why not? Or so I thought at the time.

First, I started with the consomme. I had read about how to make it before, but I had never actually tried it. I took some quail-and-chicken stock (long story) and brought it to a simmer with whipped egg whites in it, which did mostly work to clarify it, though it wasn't the most beautiful consomme ever devised. Then I skimmed off everything I could from the top and ran the consomme through a strainer, because what could it hurt?

 

To this I added two tablespoons of unflavored gelatin and heated it until almost boiling. After allowing the consomme to cool a bit, I added the vinegar and the lime juice that I used instead of lime Jell-O. This is where things first started to go awry: upon adding the acidic ingredients, the nice, clear consomme turned a sickly, milky white color. As instructed, I added some of the consomme-gelatin mixture to my mold on its own, arranging a few olive slices on top as it started to thicken. However, even at the time I figured you wouldn't be able to see the olives from the top, since the opacity slider on the gelatin had moved far past its initial setting.

 

Once the rest of the gelatin got to the "very thick" stage, I mixed in the rest of the ingredients, then added the newly chunky mixture to the other gelatin in the mold and refrigerated until completely hardened. Upon unmolding, I found myself with this:

 

 

The first practical problem with this mold is that it does not cut nicely. The cabbage strips make it turn into a gibbering pile of goo however delicately you try to slice it.

The second problem with this recipe is everything else. It doesn't look nice (I guess it looks kind of like molded coleslaw, which would be much better) and it tastes awful. I hate to be crass on this blog, but the taste of this dish is like if you went to a barbeque, ate some coleslaw, fruit salad, and chicken, then vomited all of that up, only if it were cold as it came up.

The writers of this recipe went very wrong when they were arguing over whether to make this a savory salad or a fruit salad and ultimately decided to make it both. The acidity of the vinegar and lime juice do not complement the consomme, neither of which are complemented by the cabbage and pineapple combination. The nuts and olives are fine on their own, but don't fit in with the other components one bit.

 

Before I tasted this, I thought that this recipe read like someone constructed a "Things that Work Well in Jell-O" dart board and threw five or six darts at it to determine what they would include. It tastes like it, too. I forced myself to eat about half of a "slice", then tossed the rest. My goal with all of these recipes is to make the best possible version of each one, and I believe I did that here, but much as an actor cannot transcend an asinine writer in a play, the best possible ingredients cannot transcend a garbage recipe.

I tried. Don't subject yourself to Fruited Perfection. I don't think the recipe writers did.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #135: Sunset Salad

Howdy, Jigglers! Today I am tackling what is probably one of the most popular non-dessert Jell-O recipes ever invented, the Sunset Salad. Even my mom, who doesn't cotton to the idea of using Jell-O for anything outside of fruit salads, liked this colorful mold of carrots and pineapple.

 

Before proceeding any further, I would just like to say how much I love the look of this salad as styled here. It is a triumph, and it sets a big, scary precedent for how this salad should look. Even the garnishes look luxe, and I'm particularly happy to see that carrot ribbons predate Instagram.

Back to the actual recipe, though. Because this salad is so beautiful when clear, I broke down and just bought orange Jell-O and followed the recipe to the letter instead of using orange juice and unflavored gelatin. I also omitted the pecans. Okay, I did make one substantial change: I added another tablespoon of unflavored gelatin to the Jell-O to make sure the molds would hold their shape nicely, plus I just prefer harder gelatin in general.

The recipe is very simple to make, but I was disappointed in how little it made. I filled four individual molds of various sizes (one small, two medium, and one large), but I couldn't have filled my Bundt pan even halfway with this recipe, and it wouldn't have filled my fish mold either. Again, my suggestions are to follow.

I think this turned out looking close to as nice as the photo from the book. It certainly looks nice, and I  enjoyed how it tasted as well, enough to eat it with lunch all week and then miss it when it was gone. The carrots provide a crunchy contrast to the tropical fruit flavors of the gelatin, but they are sweet enough not to be incongruous with the overall taste. It tastes very bright and summery as well--this would be a perfect side at an Easter dinner or a spring picnic to get you out of those winter blues.

Now, if I were to make this again (and this recipe might have to go into the venerable "I plan on making this again" pile), I would do it a little differently. For best visual and taste appeal, I would leave all ingredients the way I left them except I would double the quanity of water and dissolve a package of pineapple Jell-O alongside the orange Jell-O. This would achieve the orange-pineapple effect that the recipe calls for, and it would make the mold prettier and bigger. If you try this, you might want to increase the amount of carrots and pinapple a little, maybe a quarter or a third, but no more. That way the mold will be a little clearer and provide more of a "things are floating in the Jell-O" aesthetic, as seen in the recipe photograph.

 

As-is, though, the Sunset Salad was still a superb success for a Jell-O recipe with vegetables in it. For anyone who doesn't dig carrots, this might be just what you need to get that beta carotene in. General Foods gets a gold star for this one.

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #176: Cherry-Glazed Ham

 Howdy, Jigglers! For our Christmas dinner this year, I roasted a shank portion ham, and that provided a perfect excuse to try one of the more creative recipes from Joys of Jell-O--Cherry-Glazed Ham!

This recipe has you baste a mostly roasted ham with a sweet, cherry-flavored gelatinous mixture and bedazzle it with cloves. It's very simple, but I reckoned that cherry Jell-O would be too sweet with all the added sugar, and the cherry flavor would be a little too much or too artificial. I remedied this situation by replacing the water and Jell-O with pure black cherry juice and two tablespoons of unflavored gelatin.

I did everything else exactly as specified in the recipe, and look how nice and shiny this ham turned out!

Clearly this was the piece de resistance of our entire holiday meal. Even now I can't get over how pretty it was!

The ham tasted great, too. The outside, glazed part was just the right amount of sweet, just the right amount of spiced, and ever so slightly sticky as well. Here are some slice shots.

This made a perfect centerpiece for our parmesan-encrusted roasted zucchini and our garlicky green beans. We followed the instructions on how to use the drippings as sauce, but a word of caution here: At least with the kind of ham we used, the drippings are about 70% grease and 30% gelatin mixture, and the two don't mix. For best results, try to separate the two entirely (easily done through refrigeration for leftovers, but at the first serving, try pouring off the fat into a separate container), discard the grease or reserve it for other uses, and only use the gelatin mixture for your sauce.

Despite that minor detail, this recipe is stellar, but it gets better. This recipe could easily be altered for other occasions or seasons. Imagine an Easter roast ham with a pineapple-cayenne glaze (made with canned or otherwise cooked pineapple juice, of course). Or a Thanksgiving ham with an apple cider-cinnamon glaze. Orange juice-glazed ham is a classic too, and gelatin is just the thing to make it stick. Glazed ham has just become an entire genre of cuisine for me thanks to this recipe!

Great job, General Foods, on doing something novel with Jell-O that actually works exactly as intended!

The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #63: Pineapple Snow

Howdy, Jigglers! It's been forever since I've done a Jell-O recipe, but I've been looking forward to doing this one for a long time. Whipped Jell-O never should have gone out of style--it's so bubbly and fluffy, and the calorie count per unit of volume has to be way low. Pineapple Snow takes the fluff factor and cranks it up with the addition of an egg white for extra volume, so you know this is going to be fun.

 

For once, I actually followed the recipe's ingredients list as closely as possible. I don't think the orange-pineapple flavor of Jell-O exists anymore, but I found Island Pineapple. For the juice, I cheaped out and got Jumex pineapple nectar, which worked fine.

 

 

As a side note, I have always loved this Dog 'n' Suds mug, but it broke on me not three days after this photo was taken. Rest in peace.

The method in this recipe is very simple: mix your boiling water and Jell-O, then add the juice. Chill until very thick, then add egg white and whip until fluffy and chill until hardened. I suppose you could mold this recipe, but you would have to be very careful not to heat the mold up too much when unmolding, or else the exterior of the mold would lose its delicate texture.

 

 

 

The only hiccup I had while making Pineapple Snow is that I don't think I waited quite long enough to start whipping. It whipped up fine, but some solid Jell-O accumulated in the bottom of each dish, as seen in the photo below. This in itself is not bad, but if I had waited a bit longer, I bet it wouldn't have happened, so have patience.

 

 

 

The end result of this recipe is truly fluffy while maintaining its pineapple-y richness. I have been on a pineapple kick for a month now, but this is really good, even with the actual Jell-O. While I have not tried the pineapple Jell-O in regular jiggly Jell-O form, with this preparation, it's excellent. I think all the bubbles, and thus dilution of the gelatin, keep the flavors from becoming overpowering.

 

In addition to the taste, I like how simple and easy this recipe is, as well as that it's not instantly recognizeable as Jell-O. Pineapple Snow would be just as at home at a kid's summer party as it would be at a holiday table or a luncheon adult friends.  I guess I would describe it as a fruity, mousse meringue.

 

Pineapple Snow is among my favorite recipes that I've made with Jell-O specifically, if not my very favorite. The only thing I might alter about it someday is to add some coconut milk or something coconutty (toasted coconut flakes on top?) to make Pina Colada Snow. That would be tiki bar heaven for me. 

 

We have to commend General Foods heartily for their addition of the Pineapple Snow recipe to the Joys of Jell-O cookbook. Next time, we will dive into a recipe much less firmly planted in the "This has got to be good" camp and much more firmly planted in the "Why would anyone do this with Jell-O?" camp.

Gelatin in the Wild: Lala Yomi Gelatina Fresa (Reduced Sugar)

Howdy, Jigglers! In this installment of Gelatin in the Wild, we are going to make a sequel to the Lala Yomi Gelatina Uva with its strawberry-flavored counterpart. Just like last time, I encountered this cup o' gelatin all of a sudden and only had a chance to get this photo before scarfing it down:

 

 

Strawberry is and has always been my favorite artificial gelatin flavor. It doesn't quite taste like strawberries, but it gets the point across, and this was no exception. I really found the artificial sweeteners less pronounced in this version as compared to the grape flavor, too. As with the grape variety, though, the strawberry Yomi has that bouncy texture we were all hoping for. 

 

All in all, Lala Yomi Fresa doesn't disappoint. Consider it a perfect substitution for a reduced-sugar Jell-O cup!