National Jell-O Week: Sunken Treasure

The very mysterious-sounding Sunken Treasure comes to us from Amazing Magical Jell-O Desserts: 72 Gelatin & Pudding Recipes Your Kids Will Enjoy (1977). My co-worker, Donna, gave this to me for Christmas after finding it at a thrift store–you know, because I am now Weird Jell-O Girl. I’m totally Weird Jell-O Girl! So much so that when I threw myself a little birthday shindig last month, not one, but two people brought celebratory Jell-O dishes.

I love my friends.

Anyway, Amazing and Magical Jell-O Desserts is an odd little book. But so of its time–filled with quasi-psychadelic illustrations and featuring magic tricks from “Marvello The Great.”

This book has codes for the recipes–a heart for the very simple, a diamond for recipes that are “a little more challenging and will appeal to the interests of older children,” and a star for recipes that are for “children with more cooking skills.”

I didn’t go hard-core with a star–this is a diamond dish. Don’t judge. This is my third Jell-O dish in one week, cut me some slack.

The Sunken Treasure incorporates a Jell-O making technique called “flaking.” And yes, there are terms for specific Jell-O techniques. You can’t make this shit up–it’s right there in my 1962 edition of “The Joys of Jell-O.” Flaking is just running a fork through the Jell-O to make tiny Jell-O bits.

So I flaked the entire pan of orange Jell-O and then did all of the Cool Whip mixing and layering. Well, and here it is. My Sunken Treasure:

Instead of making four of them I just made one massive Sunken Treasure. Which doesn’t look anywhere near as good as Marvello’s creation. But it tasted just like you’d expect it to. Which was just OK, because I’m not a fan of canned fruit–fruit cocktail in particular. So I picked around the pieces of fruit and just ate the Jell-O. And not the whole thing! Lordy lordy–that’s a lot of Jell-O!

It really is a shame that I struck out with my dishes: no layers in my 1-2-3, a banana tinged with Robitussin, and now a fruit cocktail parfait.

Oh, well. I have still really enjoyed spending National Jell-O Week with you. And Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who are celebrating. I have a hot date with the laundry room tonight. And maybe my taxes.  Scintillating.