Festive Fruit Salad

Gelatin salads can add a gleaming, jiggly touch to your holiday table. Another plus, gelatin salads can be made the day before serving. Just remember not to unfold your gelatin salad until right before you’re ready to serve it. Another plus, everyone loves jello. Festive fruit salad is one of my favorites and I make it often. It’s great served for dessert with a dollop of whipped cream, non-dairy whipped topping, sour cream or Greek yogurt.

festive fruit
festive fruit

Made With

Gelatin Salads can be served as a dessert or as a tasty addition to any meal. Jello salads can be made in so many different ways, I don’t think it’s possible to list them all. Every family seems to have a favorite jello salad that is served at every holiday, birthday party or graduation get together. This salad is made with mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, raspberry gelatin, whole berry cranberry sauce, chopped pecans and fresh whole blackberries.

Gelatin

An odorless. tasteless and colorless thickening agent, which when dissolved in hot water and then cooled, forms a jelly. It’s useful for many purposes such as jelling molded desserts and salads. It’s also for thickening cold soups. Granulated gelatin is the most common form of unsweetened commercial gelatin on the market. It’s packaged in boxes of 1/4-ounce envelopes and is also available in bulk.

Sheet Gelatin

Not as readily available as granulated gelatin is leaf or sheet gelatin, which comes in packages of paper-thin sheets. Four sheets of leaf gelatin equal one package of powdered gelatin. Leaf gelatin must be soaked longer than granulated gelatin and it therefore not as popular. This product is often called for in jelled European dessert recipes. It can be found in some gourmet and bakery supply shops. Sweetened gelatin dessert mix is also available in various artificial fruit flavors.

Festive Fruit Salad

A delicious molded jello fruit salad.

Ingredients

  • 1 11 oz can mandarin oranges, undrained
  • 1 8 oz can pineapple chunks, undrained
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1 6 oz package raspberry gelatin
  • 1 16 oz can whole berry cranberry sauce
  • 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 cup whole blackberries

Equipment

  • jelli mold

Instructions
 

  • Drain oranges and pineapple, reserving juice; add enough water to juice to measure 1/2 cup. Set fruit aside.
  • Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil in a saucepan. Add gelatin; cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes or until gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat, and stir in juice mixture. Cover and chill mixture until mixture is the consistency of unbeaten egg whites. Fold in oranges, pineapple, whole-berry cranberry sauce and pecans. Gently fold in blackberries.
  • Lightly spray a 6 cup mold with non-stick cooking spray. Spoon fruit/jello mixture into mold.
  • Cover and chill until firm. Unmold and serve

Autumn Swirl Cake with Maple Bacon Frosting

For this recipe we used Jello