This is the 3rd of the 3 gelatin desserts I chose for this week. Today’s recipe was the Crown Jewel mold, also called Stained Glass, or Broken Window Glass. It is another basic Bavarian dessert from the Joys of Jello cook book.
**Crown Jewel Dessert** (directions are for the dessert on lower left)
- 1 package (3 oz) each Orange, Cherry and Lime Jell-O
- 3 cups boiling water
- 2 cups cold water
- 1 cup pineapple juice (NOT fresh!!)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 package (3 oz) Lemon Jell-O
- 2 cups whipping cream
Prepare the three flavors of gelatin separately, using one cup boiling water and 1/2 cup cold water for each (I omitted the lime for a more Valentine look). Pour each flavor into an 8-inch pan and chill until firm, or overnight.
(appropriatley enough, my only pans are heart-shaped!)
Then mix pineapple juice and sugar. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Dissolve lemon gelatin in the hot juice; then add 1/2 cold water. Chill until slightly thickened.
Cut firm gelatins into 1/2 inch cubes (this can be done the day before).
Prepare whipped cream; blend with thickened lemon gelatin. Fold in gelatin cubes. Pour into 3 quart mold and chill at least 5 hours or overnight. ***
This is where it got interesting. Perhaps it didn’t set long enough or maybe Jello isn’t as firm as it used to be, but there were indicators that this one might also collapse under it’s own weight. I completed it at my mother’s house and we were ready to quickly snap a picture in case it did. Not altogether attractive but it held together. Barely. I’m not joking. This thing seemed to be at the uttermost limits of the liquid/solid line.
Watch this quick 12 second video. (still figuring out the whole posting a video thing)
Then we started having fun with it. It looked like a Jello autopsy.
This last photo looked to me like a cheese pizza fell out of it’s box into a pile. This got us (ok, me) started on designing a Jello pizza – a graham cracker “crust”, cherry Jello, chilled in a round cake pan for the “sauce”, lemon Bavarian for the “cheese” and another red Jello chilled in a small can (a la cranberry sauce) and sliced to make the “pepperoni”. Hmmmm.
Anyway, back to the mangle corpse of the Crown Jewel. This was a huge mold and the three of us only had a few bites. What to do with it? We scooped half of it into a couple dessert glasses (saved again!) and brought them over to the neighbors who, get this, were just talking about wishing they had Jello for dessert. They were beyond happy. The rest went into a Tupperware and sent home with another neighbor who stopped by and also happened to like Jello. Who knew! I now have some test subjects. All I have to do is cook over at my mother’s house when I get that Jello urge.
