Hello! It's vegan jello!!!

VEGAN JELLO...

When I first introduced agar-agar in this blog, I was making vegan gummy bears. Though that recipe was somewhat of a success, it tried my patience, but I'm not going to give up on my vegan gummy bears.  Agar-agar usually tries my patience.  It makes me work for the results I want.  The other day, I had some fruit left over and decided to make a raspberry jello mold, but it was a major fail.  It had much too much agar in it.  The texture was more like plastic. Then, I found another recipe, using only 1/2 teaspoon of agar powder.  The recipe came out well, but a bit too runny for my liking.  I increased the agar in the recipe by 1/4 teaspoon but wasn't sold on the finished product until I doubled the agar powder in the original recipe and finally I think it is "gelatin"-like.  Yay!    

Now, for those of you who don't remember why vegans should not eat gelatin, here's a refresher.   Gelatin simply is not a vegetarian or vegan product. Gelatin is traditionally made by boiling the bones, cartilage, and skins of animals or fish.  Agar, derived from red seaweed, is a popular vegan/vegetarian substitute, however, if you've never used it in a recipe before do some experimentation to get the texture just right.  There are agar flakes and agar powder.  For every tablespoon of agar flakes, use one teaspoon of agar powder.  I like using the powder over the flakes mainly because I can buy it cheaper.  I buy it for .99¢ from the local Asian market.  One ounce of agar flakes may start at about $8.00.  So, I'll stick to the powder for now.

Ingredients for vegan jello sans the water.

I especially love jello in the summer.  It's light and it provides that refreshing dessert that I need.  Admittedly, I am a bit odd and I experiment with almost everything.  I'll make tea jello, juice jello, and flavor water jello.  If you are weird like me and love to experiment, then I urge you to try these as well.  Only don't be so disappointed if they don't turn out the way you want it to at first.  Each disappointment is a long-term lesson in making the jello you'll love to eat the future.  Only, don't give up.  With this, practice makes perfect and I practice a great deal.  Oh! You may not want to serve your failed experiments to others because they may incorrectly judge what vegan jello could be.  Instead, I took the hard road and ate all of my failed experiments.  Yeah, poor me!  If you try this, you'll see this really is an awesome treat!  Below is the basic recipe using fruit juice.

VEGAN FRUIT JELLO 

About 4 servings of  jello.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon agar-agar powder
• 1 cup fruit juice (be sure it's 100% fruit juice of choice)
• 1/4 cup cane sugar

Instructions:

1. Mix agar-agar powder in water to dissolve.  
2. Then pour into saucepan combine with juice and cane sugar.
3. Bring it to boil over medium heat, which takes about 10 minutes.
4. Once at a boil, let boil for about 2 minutes. Be sure to stir occasionally to mix. 



One White Grape Peach Jello ready to eat!





5. Remove from the heat pour into individual cups or molds, or in a small glass tray. Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving. I usually make it the night before and eat it the next day.

Tip: Be sure to pour into mold while mixture is hot so it will not begin setting in the pot.  Do not leave out the water as it provides the correct texture to the jello.  Also, orange juice is tricky and only fresh-squeezed orange juice works with this recipe.

Enjoying a refreshing treat!

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If you liked this recipe, let me know.  It is a warm time to enjoy some refreshing jello.