Rainbow Jello Tutorial

My cousin Brittany gave me the idea a few months back to make rainbow jello for Dalton's 1st birthday party.  So, the night before, I googled it and read a few different ways to do it, and chose The Funky Polkadot Giraffe.  Theirs seemed the easiest and most straightforward.  Plus, it used sweetened condensed milk in the middle of the layers to make each layer stand out.

First, we started with 2 mixtures.

Mixture #1:

1 1/2 cups boiling water

3 packets of Knox gelatine

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Mixture #2

1 1/4 cups boiling water

3 packets of Knox gelatine

(obviously I was working on the cupcakes at the same time)

Then you mix one package of jello with 1 cup of boiling water.

Then add 1/4 cup of the gelatine/water mixture.

Pour it evenly among the cups and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, add some of the sweetened condensed milk mixture to each cup.

I found that most of them were set up enough to handle the 2nd layer, but every so often, one would leak and I would get a swirly rainbow instead of a layered one.  30 minutes might be a safer amount of time.

Can you see what I mean about this project taking ALL DAY!

Next refrigerate the white layer for only 10 minutes.

It sets up pretty fast.

If it doesn't seem set when you jiggle the cup a little bit, give it an extra 5.

Then continue this way...jello...milk...jello...milk...until you have all of the layers.

I tried to buy all Wal-mart brand jello because it is cheaper, but they don't have as many cool colors as the real "jello" does.

After hours of layering jello, we added a blob of home made whipped cream and some colored sprinkles, and voila:

Rainbow Jello Cups.

Check out this fun idea I found online...making it in beakers.

(found at momofukufor2)

Here's my opinion (for what it's worth) on rainbow jello:

I wasn't brave enough to taste it because the gelatin/water mixture stunk so bad, that it ruined it for me.  My kids however, loved it.  My husband (also a jello fan) thought it was really good, but a bit too gelatin-ish.  I wonder if it would work to add less gelatin but let it refrigerate longer?  I may have to try it because that much gelatin kind of grossed me out.  But, overall, it was still a huge hit at the party!

And FYI, since I made it in cups instead of in a 9 X 13 pan, I needed an extra batch of the sweetened condensed milk mixture to have enough to go around.