Rainbow Finger Jello

Lazy, slow and hot summer days...looking for ways to fill the endless time, desperate for ways to cool yourself down.  Jumping into a blue, blue square of pool, water splashes high into the hot, hot air.  Tearing greedily into an ice cold slice of the reddest, sweetest watermelon you ever had.  Running squealing with happiness through the sprinklers on a green patch of lawn.  Catching the rainbow in the air as you jump high through the cool water.  

And best of all, having some of the most yummilicious summer treats of all, those cool, wobbly, translucent blobs of pure glowing color that you can hold in your fingers and bite right through and let slide down, cool and sweet, right into your tummy.  Rainbow Finger Jello is summer in a bite...the magic of rainbows cast into jingly, wobbily delicious life as a cool, fun to play with and super easy to make jello-y summer treat. 

photo credit - Georges Noblet

The trick of these easy to make beauties is an understanding of the most basic properties of color.  This Rainbow Finger Jello only requires three colors of blue, yellow and red to make and yet, as you can see, in the final jello-y goodness all the colors of the rainbow are present!  How could this be so?  Well here is a color wheel to refresh our memories:

Because our jello has the three primary colors of blue, yellow and red and because it is translucent and allows light to pass through, the primary colors mix with neighboring color and create the illusion of the secondary colors of orange, violet and green.  Red mixed with blue makes violet.  Red mixed with yellow makes orange.  Yellow mixed with blue makes green.  Therefore you hold up your Rainbow finger jello and see all the colors of the rainbow!

This project started out as a "take to school" treat for my little girl's school.  We were going through the different options when we discovered that we could make rainbow hued finger jello.  Whoopee!  Rainbow time!  So we started right away.  The first batch we made got eaten up right away, lickety-split, by ourselves, being too delicious to resist.  Who can resist an edible rainbow?  So we ended up making a couple more batches for school.

Jello powder

Add hot water and stir

The great thing about jello is that it's an easy to make treat that kids can do all by themselves, with supervision of course.  So my little girl made the first batch of this rainbow finger jello all by herself, mixing and stirring away happily, sneaking pinches of the sweet gelatin powder when she thought I wasn't looking.  It was a real treat to see her incredulous face when we cut out the first squares of rainbows and held them up to the light!  Pure magic!

What are y'all waiting for?  Make some Rainbow Finger Jello magic today!!

 

Rainbow Finger Jello Recipe

(Prep time: 15 mins  Cook time: 0 mins  Setting time: 1 hour 30 mins)

Ingredients:

• 1 shallow glass baking dish, approx 13" by 8"
• 1 box blue jello, 6 oz or 160g
• 1 box  yellow jello, 6 oz or 160g
• 1 box red jello, 6 oz or 160g
• 3 tbsp unflavored gelatin
• 6 cups boiling water
• 1 1/2 cup iced water

Directions:

Put 1/2 cup of room temp boiled water into the freezer for 10-15 mins or until very chilled.  Prepare boiling water.  In large mixing bowl pour in blue jello powder and add in 1 tbsp of unflavored gelatin and stir to mix.  Pour in two cups of boiling water.  Stir until gelatin dissolved.  Pour in chilled water from freezer and stir.

Grease the baking dish with a layer of oil.  Pour gelatin into baking dish and use a spoon to skim off all the bubbles.  (You want to do this thoroughly as bubbles will leave a mark on the jello if left to set.)  Put in the fridge and let set for 30-40 mins or until the jello is firm to the touch but still a tiny bit tacky.  

Repeat the above steps with the yellow color and last of all, the red color.  Be sure to get the colors in the right order, blue, then yellow, then red, or the rainbow won't appear!

When the rainbow jello is completely set, use a sharp knife to loosen the edge around the baking dish.  Then use your fingers to gently pull the jello away from the side.  It should be easy to detach.  Cut out desired shapes and then remove one by one from the dish to serving tray.  Cover and keep in the fridge until serving.

Summer Delights at The Hong Kong Cookery:

Green Mung Bean Popsicle 綠豆雪條

White Bean Paste Nerikiri Bunny

Crushed M&Ms Vanilla Ice Cream

Valentine Heart Candy

Maltose Crackers 麥芽糖夾餅

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