RED BERRIES AND CREAM GELATIN MOLD

Serves 12

WE MAY NOT HAVE FAMILY CRESTS IN AMERICA, BUT WE DO HAVE WEIRD FAMILY recipes. You know the ones, the slightly odd side dishes at family potlucks that never make sense to an outsider. And they may not get completely devoured, but if they were ever missing, people would notice. (Another defining quality of the wackiest family recipes—they tend to just appear on the table at every gathering, as though out of thin air and not made by an actual person. Mystical!) In the Midwest, more often than not, that recipe will be some kind of gelatin-based situation, whether it be a “salad” (see here), or molded dessert.

The combination of red Jell-O and whipped cream, probably in the form of a “nondairy whipped topping” and stuffed into the divot left behind by an oiled Bundt pan, is pure Heartland buffet glory. As it turns out, when you start with red Jell-O as your inspiration, it’s easy to find fresh berries and real fruit juice that produce that color in nature, with even better flavor. And when you add a layer of lush, creamy buttermilk panna cotta, you really can reinvent the wheel. Maybe this from-scratch stab at my family’s gelatinous favorite will inspire you to try and remix yours. Unless yours is made with green Jell-O. Good luck with that.

RED BERRY LAYER:

Nonstick cooking spray for pan

4 cups/900 g cranberry juice cocktail, divided

5½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin

⅔ cup/132 g granulated sugar

1 cup/170 g hulled and quartered fresh strawberries

1 cup/170 g fresh red raspberries

PANNA COTTA LAYER:

⅓ cup/75 g cold water

1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin

2 cups/480 g heavy whipping cream

6 tablespoons/75 g granulated sugar

⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 cup/225 g well-shaken buttermilk

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract or pure vanilla bean paste

Prepare the red berry layer: Generously spray a 10- to 12-cup/2.4 to 2.8 L Bundt pan or gelatin mold with nonstick cooking spray. Invert the pan onto paper towels to allow any excess to drip away.

In a small, bowl, whisk together 1 cup/225 g of the cranberry juice cocktail and the gelatin. Set aside to soften for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a 2- to 2½-quart/1.9 to 2.4 L saucepan, combine the remaining 3 cups/675 g of cranberry juice cocktail and the sugar. Place the pan over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar, about 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the gelatin. Place the pan in the refrigerator and allow the gelatin to cool and thicken slightly, about 1 hour. During this time, you can gently stir it a time or two to check on it, but do not whisk, or you’ll form bubbles in the gelatin. After an hour or so, it should be thickened but still flow in a stream, not unlike hair-styling gel.

Pour the gelatin into the prepared mold. Test the gelatin’s thickness by dropping a raspberry into it—it should sink just below the surface without settling in to the bottom of the pan. Drop the rest of the berries over the gelatin—you may need to press some berries lightly to get them to sink into the gelatin and be suspended in it. Place the pan in the refrigerator and chill until the red berry layer is set but slightly sticky on the surface when touched with a fingertip, about 2 hours. (If it sets too firm, the second layer will not adhere.)

While the first layer is setting, prepare the panna cotta: In a small bowl, whisk together the water and gelatin. Set aside to soften.

In a 2- to 2½-quart/1.9 to 2.4 L saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, and salt. Stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved—do not allow the mixture to come to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the gelatin. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla extract or paste. Set aside to cool at room temperature—do not refrigerate.

When the red berry layer has partially set, pour the cooled panna cotta mixture over it. Place the pan back in the refrigerator and chill until completely set, a minimum of 12 hours. Gelatin reaches its full setting ability with 24 hours of chilling time.

To unmold the dessert, lightly spray a serving plate with nonstick cooking spray and dab away the excess with a paper towel. Use the pads of your fingertips to gently pull the gelatin away from the sides and center tube of the mold to “break the seal.” Fill a sink or large bowl with hot tap water. Dip the mold in the hot water for 5 to 10 seconds. Remove and dry off the mold with a towel. Place your serving plate over the mold and invert it. Shimmy the mold back and forth until you hear the gelatin release. Carefully remove the mold. Slice and serve. The gelatin keeps in the refrigerator uncovered for up to 3 days.

ON DESSERT SALADS

When it comes to the “dessert salad” culture of the Midwest, where do we even begin? Maybe it’s best just to call out the elephant in the room—these recipes are most certainly wacky, and really, resemble anything but actual salad. To be fair, they might have one or two saladlike ingredients—say, fresh apple chunks, pineapple tidbits, or mandarin orange segments—but usually that’s canceled out by the addition of packaged Day-Glo gelatin, instant pudding, or tubs of whipped topping, among other eyebrow-cocking add-ins, like vegetables that would indeed be found in an actual salad. (A recipe from a vintage Lutheran church cookbook called “Yellow Jell-O” involves lemon gelatin, cabbage, pineapple, and diced cucumbers. The headnote says simply “Germans love this!” Do they, though?)

For sweet dessert salads, the whimsical names alone encourage as many questions as the ingredients: Glorified Rice, Watergate Salad, Snickers Salad (yes, the candy bar), Cookie Salad. Ambrosia is another popular selection, but is claimed as much by the South as the Midwest. In short, an exemplary dessert salad is the kind of thing that makes you hate yourself for how much you love it.

It’s interesting to try and figure out exactly how and why this dessert salad phenomenon came about, and why it’s so prevalent in the Midwest. The prominence of churchgoers, particularly Catholics and Lutherans, definitely has a hand in it—potluck-based community meals postservice are still very much a thing in the central states, and dessert salads are a cheap and easy way to feed a crowd. It could also have something to do with the strength of Scandinavian and Nordic roots here and their tastes; there are several traditional foods of those cultures that are gelatinous, creamy, and, um, goopy, for lack a better word (think: lutefisk, for example, or any number of thick, almost-bouncy fermented dairy products like skyr or viili, which have been blended with fruit and sugar and served as dessert for hundreds of years). As a specific example, glorified rice might have been inspired by the delicious Scandi rice puddings that go by several names in those countries (see here).

But regardless of their origins, dessert salads have a place on our picnic tables and in our hearts, and almost everyone from the region has a favorite (however reluctant they are to admit it), most likely a family recipe from a singular aunt who’s known for bringing it to any get-together requiring an edible contribution. For me, nothing is better on the Fourth of July than a certain dessert salad that my Auntie Amy has been making since the days of Tupperware parties (on here). It has such a fantastically bizarre combination of ingredients (pineapple juice, flour… vinegar?!), you’ll never even believe me when I tell you that somehow, it actually does taste like a taffy apple. The great mysteries of the Midwest, I tell you.