Fun with Jelly

Ok, so before I even start this post I’ll probably have to ‘translate’ the title. We call it jelly, you call it jello or gelatin. Right, got that sorted…

On the south beach (yes, sorry people, talking about the beach again, but I’m sure people on other diets can do this too!) they suggest sugar-free jelly as a dessert\sweet treat. Now jelly is always fun (it brings out the small child at a birthday party side of me. I was most disapointed that Bekki didn’t have jelly at her party yesterday. Happy Belated Birthday Bekki!) but a friend of ours, who is a recent convert to the beach, had been experimenting with it….

Presenting jelly with quark.This is amazing! Quark is a fat-free soft cheese. And what you do is after you’ve disolved the jelly and added cold water you let it sit a bit longer until it’s quite cool. Well, this is what I did anyway - you just don’t want the cheese to curdle. Then add some quark (or ricotta, or some other low-fat soft cheese. She’s tried cottage cheese, but said that the texture wasn’t that great). Use a hand held electric whisk to blend the jelly and quark together*, then pour into pots and put in the fridge to set. I put it into five pots so each is an individual portion and they’re easy to take out and about if I want to. As the jelly sets the mixture settles and you end up with a layered effect. If my amusement is anything to go by, then kids will loved these! Also, the colour was pretty cool too. I used a raspberry jelly so the finished jellies turned out this amazing shocking pink colour. Wait a second, let me see if I can take a picture..

I don’t think these pictures quite do the colour justice, but the side on one does show how it ended up in layers.
* Actually I just used a fork and whisked fast, but my hand a wrist ached afterwards, so I’ll be using an electric whisk next time!