Insomnia Jello No. 2 - Mandarin Mousse Mold

How many people can say, "I saw my dessert being made!"?

How many people would even want to say such a thing? And does it count if they see pictures of it in the internet hours after it was actually finished?

I not positive of any numbers but by golly, my family can say with (pride?) and honesty that their dessert was on the webs before it was in their tummies.

Last night's Apple Orchard Dessert would have been a lot prettier if I had a gorgeous Waterford crystal bowl to put it in, but I do not so it went in a lovely snow white Corelle bowl.

And while it looked only somewhat like the photo, I have to say I was surprised at how tasty it was. The apples took on the flavor of the lemon Jello and they were juicy ma'fuggas.

It's 2:31 am and I've already begun night 2 of Insomnia Jello, the mandarin mousse mold.


If I take nothing else away from this experiment I have learned that jello molds are sized by cups, and that the jello mold I borrowed is only 4 cups, and the bundt pan I borrowed is 8, and the size I needed for the mandarin mousse mold is 6.

HA!

At any rate I thought it best to go too large versus too small. I cross my fingers when I say un-molding should go splendidly.

This recipe is easy as well, or at least that's how the Jello people intended it to be, but the Jello people have never seen me fuss with powdered desserts.

Boil 1 and a half cups water in my lovely snow white bowl. Add in 6 ounces of orange Jello.

I won't lie even though Jello and I don't often see eye to eye in regards to it's proper (and visually appealing) preparation, I'm still mesmerized by knowing it will eventually be 'jiggly'.

Stir until dissolved. Then I had to add a cup of cold water to the jello, and put my 11 oz. can of mandarin oranges into the mold pan. I took the light syrup and added just a bit of cold water to make the cup of cold water the recipe called for. I think I'm being delightfully creative but this will probably shoot the whole works in the ass later on.

Look at me not wasting anything like the American Indians with buffaloes.

A half a cup of syrup and they want me to throw it away.

I arranged the oranges neatly, which you shouldn't do. The next step is to put 2 cups of your orange jello into the mold over the oranges and the oranges simply float around and don't appreciate your original placement.

I put the mold in the fridge along with the remaining Jello. Wait a half hour.

I bet the Amish love Detroit.

The Jello is the consistency of thick slime. I'm feeling sweat beads on my forehead.

 One cup...

...2 cups of "cool whip". Now they want me to mix it. The dread in my stomach is working its way up to my heart.

Jesus.what.have.i.done

Ok ok it didn't mix up that badly. I would definitely always use a whisk for this. Once I had the two sides mixed together, I actually got the feeling that there's no way they're going to re-gel.

I took a minute to rinse my cups/whisk and I was kind of surprised that when I went to gingerly spoon my whipped topping layer in, it was already starting to gel without my permission.

The bottom isn't pretty but neither is yours. I'm actually quite excited to eat this because there's no way it won't taste good. I am NOT excited to unmold it, because nothing really got away from me tonight, but the catastrophic gelatin failure is always lurking around the corner.

I have my ride along tomorrow and I'll be more on edge thinking about getting this quivering masterpiece out of a bundt pan than meeting up with common criminals.

Recipe Source