There is nothing that scares my family more than Jello. After the Lime Crab Mold debacle of 2019, they fear the Jello. Intense fear. I spend most evenings going through all the recipes that my Mom gave me and picking the ones that sound interesting – and I thought that just maybe this one would be okay…even if it has Jello.
Full disclosure at the beginning at this post. I did this wrong. Like, horribly wrong. I’ve always tried to interpret the recipes written in front of me instead of doing any sort of research first. I don’t want to know what it’s supposed to look like or how it’s supposed to be made. I want to see if I can follow the recipe as written. Now that I’ve looked online I clearly see that this was supposed to be Jello PUDDING. Not Jello gelatin. Rereading the recipe, it’s SO clear now.
However, even if I had replaced the gelatin for pudding – this shit still wasn’t going to ‘thicken’ over a double boiler. What exactly does “thick” mean? Thick like a pastry cream – or just thicker than water? I cooked this over a double boiler for 25 minutes and there was little to no change. It was thicker than water – so I went with that.
Next: “…then add the egg whites beaten stiff with the rest of the sugar”. Do I beat the egg whites with the sugar? Or do I beat the eggs and then add that and the sugar separately? When I add it, am I suppose to mix it? Or am I suppose to just layer it on top? I have so many questions!!
What made the most sense to me was to beat the sugar in with the eggs whites and make a basic meringue and mixed the whole thing together.
My last major mistake was an inaccurate count of graham crackers. I counted 13 graham crackers right out of the box. But since I’m clearly an idiot I took 13 full sheets of crackers. Each of those damn crackers is actually 2. Or maybe four? I doubled, or maybe even quadrupled, the cracker ratio.
Here’s a lesson for today. If something doesn’t feel right – it probably isn’t. I kept muttering to myself the entire time I was doing this, “This doesn’t feel right?”. Turns out I was correct. Trust your gut, girl!
In the end – it’s actually tastes good. It’s creamy, tart & sweet. But I can assure you that this isn’t what it’s supposed to look like. The final product looks like a piece of fried chicken on top of pudding. The graham cracker ratio is SO off it doesn’t hold together and sort of flakes off. There is graham cracker shrapnel all over my kitchen.
My husband actually likes it and plans on eating some of it – so not a total waste of food….But I’m still going to count this as a failure.