Fresh off my lemon cheesecake…well, not failure, we did eat it all, so. Anyways. Sort of a two-fer this time around.
Cloud Nine
I’ll start with this entry from the kids’ section of the same conspicuously Canadian cookbook the too lemon-y lemon cheesecake was from. I’ve actually wanted to try this out, as it resembles a similar dessert drink I saw demo-ed by a Japanese social media account. Spoiler: I…will prolly try the similar one at a later date, as I suspect it will be a lot more successful than this one was
“But I saw the preview photo?” Yeah…so. The way this one works is as follows – you make Berry Blue Jell-o with the quick thick method of ice cubes. You then spoon the thickened gelatin into a glass, with the occasional strategic spoonful of Cool Whip against the side of the glass to make the clouds. Then you put it in the fridge to set, garnish with some cookie-cut colored marshmallows, and voila!
“Berry Blue Shooting Stars”, or alternatively, a Goblet of Lies
Except, not quite. First off, using the “dump a cup of ice cubes into the hot gelatin to thicken it” also inevitably introduces a lot of air bubbles. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, per se – it’s a look! But it would be very easy for a less experienced epicurean to accidentally whip the gelatin instead of stirring the ice cubes, and that’s going to wonk up the whole blue sky illusion.
Behold! Bubbles.
Of course, if that was the only problem, I’d just tell you to be patient and let it thicken up in the fridge. To explain the crucial point of failure, I think it’s easiest if I describe the other dessert drink I mentioned earlier. This was a riff on the Japanese melon cream soda, featuring a blue (ramune, not hawaii) soda with little clouds stuck to the side of the glass, producing a very similar look. The clouds were made with spoonfuls of a sort of blanc mange, and the person demo-ing the drink was very careful to stick them onto the sides of the glass, as well as likely use sporadic shovels of ice to anchor them in place. But the key thing here is blanc mange is denser than soda.
With this dessert, the whipped cream I used was far less dense than the thickened gelatin, and my first attempt resulted in the ‘clouds’ floating ever upward, by the magic of displacement. Spooning the thickened gelatin directly on top didn’t seem to help, nor did judiciously smearing the whipped cream onto the side of the glass.
The arrow is pointing to the afterimage of where the cloud started
But You Got It To Work Somehow
Yeah, who knows? My first attempt was so unsuccessful, I cannibalized it for my third attempt. My second attempt was the best, I think, and the only thing different about it was I used a sloped parfait glass instead of a more straight-sided glass. Is that the key? No clue! I can’t see why that would solve the problem, but I’m not a physicist.
Eagle-eyed readers might notice I went with whipped cream instead of tubbed whipped topping and wonder if that’s the difference. Maybe?? I honestly think it wouldn’t have changed much. At any rate, while this is a fun thing to make for kids, a lot of the recipes in this section of the cookbook are supposed to be Fun for Kids (to make). I can picture my niece attempting this and getting very upset, because I myself was very put out by my first attempt simply not working.
Cutting out the marshmallow shapes was frustration-free at least, though that mascot will haunt me in my dreams tonight
As for the recipe, if you want to try this at home, you don’t really need one. I used plain whipped cream because I figured I didn’t need the extra sugar. To solve the density problem, I wonder if using yogurt would be more successful? As for other notes, this would be a good candidate for substituting some of the water with soda, for more of a ‘drink’ effect.
So What’s The Other Thing
Ah, the topaz parfait. As if I wasn’t already feeling a bit sore from my cloud conundrums, after I finished making this relatively easy dessert, my dad opened the fridge and exclaimed “wow, this one looks so much better!”
Anyways, this is a cubed coffee jelly, with brandy in it, and also whipped cream, with brandy in it. This specific version is from The New Joys of Jell-o (1973), but it appears in other Jell-o cookbooks. There’s not much to say here, though I will provide a detailed recipe below. I think the reason why this was so successful with my resident taste tester is due to the fancy whipped cream. I did very carefully arrange the little cubes and very precisely drop dollops of whipped cream to get my photo-ready version, but this adult aperitif was nothing compared to the difficultly of assembling above kids’ confection.
You thought it was Starbucks, but it was me, Nescafe!
At the very least, I got to put my Aderia Retro reproduction glassware to good use, although that too was passed over by my father in favor of the plain parfait glasses I likely picked up at a thrift store. A simple man with a maximalist daughter, I guess.
Recipe
(makes two big full glasses with some extra)
1 3-ounce package of lemon flavored gelatin dessert mix
1 cup of freshly-brewed coffee
½ cup cold water
¼ cup brandy
½ cup heavy cream
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp brandy
Note: the original recipe also included ⅓ cup sugar, which I omitted on the basis of my resident taste tester taking his coffee sans sweetener. Do with this information what you will.
- Dissolve gelatin mix thoroughly in hot coffee. Add water and brandy, then pour into a small sided pan and chill for at least four hours.
- Once firmly set, cut gelatin into cubes and set aside.
- Combine heavy cream, brown sugar, and brandy. Whip until stiff peaks.
- Layer cubed gelatin and whipped cream in glasses.
kelp 