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I have been keeping a secret from you guys, and it is pretty major. Are you ready? Here we go:

I may have scored the greatest gelatin mold of all time.

I’m serious. I got my grubby little mitts on this thing probably 10 or so months ago, and I have been keeping it a secret ever since. Every so often I would get it out and just…stare at it. Because it is so awesome. And so majestic and so absolutely perfect for the Fourth of July. So perfect, in fact, that I bent one of my rules so that I could bring you guys the ultimate gelatin mold.

Drumroll please….

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Look at it! Look! Are you looking??? It’s an EAGLE!! It’s even holding arrows and its body is a SHIELD.

I’ve been waiting so, so long for this moment.

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The most patriotic mold ever, ever.

Anyways, on to the rule bending. So, I knew that I wanted to make a red, white and blue salad with this thing, but I didn’t have a patriotic themed recipe that worked with my eagle mold. So, I got creative with a recipe from a Kansas newspaper from the 1960’s called Christmas Salad. I have seen about a zillion variations of this one, so I thought that changing it up a bit wouldn’t be a big deal.

Christmas Salad
Author: Kansas Newspaper, 1960’s
A delicious and adaptable mold, just change the layers according to the holiday!
Ingredients
  • 2 boxes lime gelatin
  • 2 boxes strawberry gelatin
  • 1 medium can crushed pineapple
  • 1 envelope plain gelatin
  • 1/4 cup cold water
  • 3 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • 1/2 cup pecans
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 cup sugar
Instructions
  1. Mix strawberry gelatin according to package directions and put in a 13×9 pan. Let cool until partially set.
  2. Drain pineapple, save juice. Put half of pineapple and half of nuts in red gelatin and let set almost completely.
  3. Bring reserved pineapple juice to a boil and add plain gelatin which has been softened in 1/4 cup water. Add cream cheese and let cool, but not set.
  4. Whip cream, add sugar and vanilla, then add to juice and gelatin mixture. Pour over red gelatin layer and let set almost completely.
  5. Make lime gelatin according to directions and let cool until partially set. Add remaining pineapple and nuts and then pour on top of cream cheese mixture.
  6. Refrigerate until lime gelatin is completely set, then slice and serve!

 

It was pretty easy to make a couple of tweaks. The first thing that I did was move the cream cheese filling layer to the top and then I swapped out the lime gelatin with blue gelatin. Easy!

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Well, pretty easy. I am using a 10 cup mold here, so I thought that would be plenty of room for this recipe. (It is supposed to be made in a 13×9 pan, like this one.) But I was wrong. The filling layer took up about half of the mold.

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And then the two boxes of strawberry gelatin with pineapple and pecans took up more!

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In the end, I was only able to fit part of one small box of blue gelatin at the bottom, and I couldn’t fit in the pineapple or the pecans for that layer!

Luckily there were a few rogue pecans from the red layer that escaped into the blue layer. So it sort of had extras in it.

But it didn’t matter, because when I unmolded it, it was a patriotic glory to behold.

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Sniff.

Brings a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat.

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And it even tasted good!

The Verdict: Fun and Yummy

From the Tasting Notes:

A good, adaptable gelatin recipe for any holiday. Tastes like a classic potluck gelatin dessert, all that is missing are the mini marshmallows, which you could easily stir into the cream cheese/whip cream layer. The cream cheese layer was creamy and delicious and the pineapple and nuts gave it a good texture. Would be super cute made into a 13×9 pan and served at your retro barbecue!

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