Gelatin dessert

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A variety of pre-packaged gelatin dessert products

Jelly, as sold in UK

The most common culinary use for gelatin is as a main ingredient in varieties of gelatin desserts. Unprepared gelatin for desserts is often marketed as a flavored powder or concentrated gelatinous solid. Prepared gelatin desserts are marketed in a variety of forms. Popular brands include Jell-O from Kraft Foods in North America, Hartley's (formerly Rowntree's) in the United Kingdom and Aeroplane Jelly in Australia.

1 Regional naming
2 Production
3 Safety
4 Gelatin shots
5 Alternatives
6 Chemistry
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Regional naming

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and many of the Commonwealth Nations gelatin desserts are called jelly.
In the United States and Canada gelatin desserts are called gelatin and jello (generic name based on Jell-O).

[edit] Production

To make gelatin desserts, typically powdered gelatin is mixed with sugar, and additives such as adipic acid, fumaric acid, sodium citrate, and artificial flavorings and food colors. Very hot water is added to swell and melt the powdered gelatin. The dessert gels slowly as it cools.

Because the collagen is processed extensively, the final product is not categorized as a meat or animal product by the US federal government. A recent ruling by the FDA allows gelatin to be used in organic foods even though it is not an organic product.

Gelatin (US spelling) or gelatine (British spelling) (used to make Jell-o and other desserts) is made from the boiled bones, skins and tendons of animals. gelatin can be made with fish bones, pork and/or beef skins. Gelatin is meat, bone, skin, hoof, or any other part/derivative

[edit] Safety

While eating tainted beef can lead to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans^{[citation needed]}, there are no known cases of vCJD transmitted through collagen products such as gelatin.

[edit] Gelatin shots

A tray of gelatin shots prior to refrigeration

Vodka jelly, (Often known as Jello Shots in the US) is a party food where some sort of alcohol, usually rum, vodka, tequila or sometimes even grain alcohol replaces some of the water or fruit juice used to congeal the gel.

The American satirist and mathematician Tom Lehrer has been rumored to have been the first to invent the gelatin shot in the 1950s while working for the National Security Agency, where he developed vodka gelatin as a way to circumvent a restriction of alcoholic beverages on base^[1], but this claim has not been substantiated.

The maximum alcohol content is somewhere between 19 and 20 oz. of vodka per 3 oz. package of Jell-O powder, or about 30% alcohol by volume.^[2]

[edit] Alternatives

Some gelatinous desserts can be made with agar instead of gelatin, allowing them to congeal more quickly and at higher temperatures. Agar, a vegetable product made from seaweed, is used especially in quick jelly powder mix and Asian jelly desserts, but also as an alternative that is acceptable to vegans and vegetarians. Agar is more closely related to pectin and other gelling plant carbohydrates than to gelatin.

Another vegetarian alternative to gelatin is carrageenan. This alternative sets more firmly than agar, and is often used in kosher and halaal cooking. Though it, too, is a type of seaweed, it tends not to have an unpleasant smell during cooking as agar sometimes does.

[edit] Chemistry

Uncooked pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain which must not be allowed to mix with a gelatin dessert mix as it will stop the gelatin from setting properly by breaking down the gelatin. Papaya and pawpaw contain the enzyme papain, kiwi fruit contains actinidin, and figs contain ficain, all with similar effects. Cooking denatures the enzyme, rendering it inoperative.