Breaking the mold: New cookbook offers '101 Things to Do With

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 8, 2008 by Valerie Phillips Deseret News

There's always room for Jell-O recipes, especially in Utah.

Gibbs Smith Publishing, headquartered in Utah, has found success with its series on ""101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix,"" ""101 Things to Do With Ramen Noodles,"" ""101 Things to Do With Canned Soup,"" and so on. Perhaps it was just a matter of time before another kitchen staple, gelatin, would merit its own ""101"" cookbook.

"Gelatin is kind of retro, it fits in with that era of 1950s desserts, so it seemed like a logical step for our books, which have a retro look to them," said co-author Melissa Barlow, a Gibbs Smith editor who also wrote, "101 Things to Do With a Salad."

Besides, this is Utah, the state with the highest per capita Jell- O consumption. For more than a hundred years, savvy home cooks have regarded a box of fruit-flavored gelatin as an inexpensive dessert, or a way to camouflage salad ingredients from unsuspecting kids.

Barlow teamed up with another Gibbs Smith editor, Jennifer Adams Grillone.

"We decided to make it all about sweet treats and desserts, and we decided we had to really like all of the recipes," Grillone said.

So they nixed aspic dishes, where gelatin and broth or tomato juice were congealed with savory ingredients, such as shrimp, chicken or olives. It also eliminated some of the vintage recipes of Jell-O's early days, such as Lemon Whip with Prunes. And Barlow and Grillone ended up ruling out some of their own experiments.

"A couple of them were gross," Grillone said. "I did lemon Jell- O with apples, celery and sour cream, and it looked awful. I threw it down the sink."

But that still left a lot of possibilities.

"People say, 'How could there be 101 things?'" Barlow said. "But they are impressed when you tell them that you can use it in cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, pies and salads."

The book contains some familiar favorites that tend to make the rounds of potlucks and family reunions, such as Pineapple-Lime Salad (lime gelatin, cottage cheese, crushed pineapple, whipped topping), the Strawberry Pretzel Dessert and Dr Pepper salad.

And there are several versions of "poke" cakes, where the baked cake is poked with a fork and unset gelatin is poured into the holes, then chilled until set.

The authors also used gelatin in frostings, beverages, ice creams and sorbets. For Apple Chips, apple slices are dipped in lemon juice dry gelatin and dehydrated.

"We made up quite a few of the recipes and, remarkably, most of them turned out to be pretty good," Barlow said.

Both of them used friends and family as taste-testers. Barlow said she took many of her dishes to Sunday dinners with extended family members. Grillone had her in-laws over and would ask them to rate her recipes.

Some things they discovered along the way:

"A lot of recipes say to mix a box of dry Jell-O in the cake mix, and when we tried it, the cakes always fell," Grillone said.

"And you can't put kiwi into Jell-O; it doesn't set," Barlow said.

Also grapes and fruit packed in heavy syrup such as peaches and pears will sink, while bananas and apples will float.

Regular fruit-flavored gelatin is fat-free, and the sugar-free gelatin products make a good dessert for dieters.

"If I'm on a diet, I'll have some sugar-free Jell-O and stir in a little lite Cool Whip, and it satisfies my sweet cravings," Barlow said. "A few of the book's recipes specify sugar-free gelatin. But I would imagine that for most of the recipes you could get away with sugar-free, especially the salads."

The authors chose to use the generic term "gelatin" in the title because Jell-O is a brand name. However, most people know it as "Jell-O."

Before Pearle Wait patented his fruit-flavored concoction as "Jell-O" in 1897, gelatin was mainly for the wealthy. The dish involved boiling, skimming and straining calves' feet, then adding flavoring and sugar and packing it in ice overnight to set.

Wait's invention bypassed all those steps, and for 10 cents, it was affordable to the masses. The advent of home refrigerators made the jelling process easier. No wonder that by the 1930s, almost a third of the salads in just about any cookbook used gelatin, according to "Jell-O: A Biography," by Carolyn Wyman.

According to Barlow and Adams' book, more than a million packages of Jell-O brand gelatin are purchased every day.

So after all their testing and tasting, what's their favorite Jell-O flavor? Adam's favorite is raspberry; Barlow's is strawberry- banana.

After being on the market for only a month, the book has already sold 1,700 copies. Sales aren't just limited to Utah; Gibbs Smith cookbooks are sold nationally, Grillone said.

Grillone's next writing project will be a departure from cookbooks: "Remarkably Jane," with notable quotation on Jane Austen from famous writers. Barlow's next book is "Easy Christmas Cakes For Kids."

SWEETHEART CAKE

1 white cake mix, made according to package directions

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

2 tablespoons raspberry gelatin

1/2 cup boiling water

1 12-ounce container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 pint fresh raspberries