The Dessert We Love to Hate

About author / Christine Gable

Culinary enthusiast; kids cuisine and slow cooking; magazine recipe developer; professional writer. Her simple recipes are great for family dinners.

Let’s play Jeopardy:

Kids love it. For over 150 years, this fruit-based food has been dressed up (and down) with a minimum of time and effort.

Did you say, “What is JELL-O?”

Good for you. The options have expanded quite a bit since the first patent for a gelatin dessert was filed in 1845 by Peter Cooper. Followed by Pearle B. Wait’s creation of a fruit-flavored version, some things have still stayed the same since his wife, May Davis Wait, coined the name JELL-O for this new-fangled household food—like the first flavors: strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon. However, now there are generic take-offs, bulk bags, more flavors and no-sugar varieties that expand JELL-O’s appeal to the grand masses.

JELL-O is one those foods that you either love or hate. Kids: sure, they love it. Adults: they secretly love it. Or they love to hate it. I’ve noticed that when someone has prepared JELL-O as a dessert or salad item, they often apologize for it … it’s like there’s something almost shameful in having used this fruity-flavored treat yourself. But hey, when we break out the boxes and boiling water at our house, there are no apologies necessary. In fact, everyone’s eyes light up with the change-out.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that JELL-O is the perfect pick-me-up change of pace when we’re all getting bored with the same old, same old. It probably helps that we only indulge every once in a while because regular JELL-O does have its fair share of sugar and food coloring.

While we often go weeks—even months—without eating JELL-O (sshhh—don’t tell: sometimes I even forget about those little boxes), it was a lack of dessert and a box of little 3-oz. clear plastic cups from a local garage sale that got us dishing up this cool, refreshing treat again. For these cups were just perfect for individual desserts, especially since making different flavors is no harder than stirring in separate bowls. Best of all, it’s not too hard to stir in a chopped banana and a can of drained mandarin oranges too. I’ve even found that fruit that’s a little past its prime is perfect for dressing up lemon, lime or orange JELL-O (our personal faves).

So there ya have it: in less than 10 minutes I had 12 little snacks/desserts cooling on the refrig shelf—and they’d be ready in time for when bellies started rumbling.

If you want to go lighter on the sugar, I’ve had good luck using straight up fruit juice with plain gelatin—or even using agar-agar from the natural foods store. Agar-agar is usually sold in flake or powdered form and it’s a vegetarian substitute made from the cell walls of red algae, a seaweed. It also goes by the name of agar or kanten. It dissolves when heated with the juice and since it contains about 80 percent fiber, has been traditionally used in Japanese cuisine for thickening soups, jelly and ice cream. Agar is also used in science labs as a growth medium in Petri dishes.

Any which way you choose to use it, JELL-O’s just a fun food. What’s your favorite way to use JELL-O?

Serves/Makes: 4

• 3 1/2 cups fruit juice, such as raspberry, cherry, berry or fruit punch
• 2 packets plain gelatin powder
• 1 container (8 ounce size) fruit or vanilla flavored yogurt