I hope you are all prepared for your holiday parties and potlucks! As for me, I couldn’t help but whip out a gelatin mold. And because apparently I don’t like anyone in my family to actually enjoy eating gelatin, I decided to use a recipe from Miracle Whip!
This is Star Fruit Mold!
AuthorRetroRuth
Star Fruit Mold - Knox And Miracle Whip Advertisement, 1970
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Soften 1 envelope gelatin in 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup ginger ale; stir over low heat until dissolved. Gradually add remaining ginger ale, stirring gently to mix. Chill until slightly thickened; fold in strawberries and blueberries. Pour into 1 1/2 qt mold, chill until almost firm.
Soften 1 envelope gelatin in 1/2 cup apricot nectar, stir over low heat until dissolved. Add the rest of the apricot nectar.
Gradually add Miracle Whip to softened cream cheese and mix until blended. Gradually add gelatin mixture until well blended. Pour over the molded gelatin layer. Chill until firm. Unmold and serve with additional Miracle Whip and strawberry garnish.
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
Directions
Soften 1 envelope gelatin in 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup ginger ale; stir over low heat until dissolved. Gradually add remaining ginger ale, stirring gently to mix. Chill until slightly thickened; fold in strawberries and blueberries. Pour into 1 1/2 qt mold, chill until almost firm.
Soften 1 envelope gelatin in 1/2 cup apricot nectar, stir over low heat until dissolved. Add the rest of the apricot nectar.
Gradually add Miracle Whip to softened cream cheese and mix until blended. Gradually add gelatin mixture until well blended. Pour over the molded gelatin layer. Chill until firm. Unmold and serve with additional Miracle Whip and strawberry garnish.
Yield: 6-8 servings
Now, if you can believe it, I do not have a large star mold in my huge gelatin mold collection. The best I could do was this stylized star and then a mini star for a center. So it’s kind of going to be like a star with fireworks around it.
So Miracle Whip has changed recipes quite a bit over the years, but I’m hoping that this recent change back to the original recipe is close to the 1970’s version.
It smelled and looked “tangy”, so I hoped for the best.
Like everything else in my life lately, the attempt to do this recipe was riddled with problems. First, the star mold. Then I couldn’t get strawberries to save my life, even though it’s strawberry season around here. So I dug in my freezer and found some red cherries. Which worked fine, because then I was able to use the rest of the cherries I thawed in a pie. Then no apricot nectar anywhere in the stores! So many ingredient shortages lately. But lucky my gelatin stash came through with my precious package of apricot Jell-O that I had to order from Amazon.
The large mold only holds 5 cups, so I had plenty of extra goo for the little star.
Success! It was a little off-center on the platter, but it came out of the molds really well. And looked pretty!
Here is an ultra close-up of the subbed cherries. They did pretty well for being my last bag from last year.
Side Note: This smelled awful. Basically like a sandwich.
More Important Side Note: Tom was not thrilled.
“Are you ok? How does it taste?”
“Terrible.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“There is a flavor in here that is not right.”
The Verdict: Not Right
From The Tasting Notes –
So, this was gross. Which was a shame, because it was a pretty mold and was fun colors. When you take a bite the initial flavor is pleasant, but it is apparent there is something very wrong. As it rests in your mouth, the Miracle Whip flavor hits hard, but then goes away. Then it’s back in full force after you swallow. The aftertaste is terrible. It’s a disturbing flavor and a strange experience. Which is a shame, because otherwise, this is a good combo for a gelatin mold. The obvious thing here is to just leave the Miracle Whip out. We ate the top off of the gelatin and the kids enjoyed it very much, so at least that was something.
Yeah, I was on board with this until Miracle Whip came into play. I *hate* mayonnaise and mayonnaise-adjacent condiments so maybe I was just being prejudiced? No, I guess not. Surely this would be better if you used Kool Whip instead.
Well thats no fun at all….
Lets blame it all on the New /Old/ again Miracle Whip .
They keep messing with the formula to make it cheaper I am sure.
Wonder if it would work with Mayo?
OK, I kept looking at the recipe and the one you typed up sounds better, no Miracle Whip in it just cream cheese in the ingredients.
I so thought this would work! It seems like a “correct” use of Miracle Whip.
Nope. Miracle Whip goes with tomatoes,not Jell-o!!!!
You were ahead of yourself when you wrote the post because you already omitted Miracle Whip from the ingredient list! Shame the taste was off because it looks great.
You guys really took one for the team on this taste test. I was good with the advert until I scrolled down and saw the jar of MW. Oy vey! On the other hand, it is (deceptively) pretty and the cherries look great!
I (Midwesterner) keep telling my partner (Pacific Northwesterner) about the Jell-o molds my family used to make in the 80s and 90s. Won’t subject them to this one, but I laughed really hard reading it. 🙂
I bet this would probably be really good with the miracle whip mixture swapped out for a panna cotta layer.