First off, let me apologize for whatever this little thing I do here becomes today. I’m using this as a distraction from an english paper I should be writing that was due like two weeks ago now.

So, the other night I was eating some jello. At some point while I was eating suddenly the words “jello popsicle” popped into my head. Now, I am not one to let such a fantastic idea just drop on the floor. I unfortunately don’t have the facilities to make real popsicles, so I figured the next best thing would be to just stick one of the jello snack cup things in the freezer and see what comes back out. Looking back now I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

I wasn’t sure if jello could even freeze. I realize it’s mostly water and sugar, but don’t forget the magical properties the gelatin imparts on those components. I wasn’t sure if it lowered the freezing point of the water or not. I’m still have no idea if it did or not, but I do know that my freezer is cold enough to freeze it, so that’s a good start. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I put it in there. A big strawberry flavored brick of ice I suppose. Well, when I pulled it out, it was certainly frozen, but it wasn’t hard like ice/a popsicle. It had changed colors though from the deep red #40 to a pinkish color.

When I opened up the jello cup it occurred to me that I had no idea how to eat this thing. It wasn’t on a stick, so I couldn’t eat it like a popsicle (which was the original intent) so I decided on the next best thing – a spoon. I’m happy to say (well, maybe not happy – perhaps I am not disheartened to say) that the spoon was quite capable of extracting the jello from its semi-cylindrical freeze-chamber. Unfortunately what it extracted wasn’t exactly delicious. It tasted pretty much the same, but the texture was just awful. Imagine syrupy gummi bears and you’ve pretty much got what it was like to eat it. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed with the results.

I should’ve realized that it wouldn’t’ve worked because jello doesn’t work like popsicles. When you lick a popsicle you melt it and extract it’s sugar water goodness. When you lick jello you accomplish nothing – jello doesn’t melt, it just kind of…. sits there. You get flavor from it for sure, but you don’t get much else. It also doesn’t work as a sherbet/ice cream/other-frozen-concoction because of it’s awful texture. I will say this, as it melted it seemed to turn back into the jello we all know and love, so at the very least, freezing jello doesn’t seem to harm it in any way. Now, why you would want to freeze jello is beyond me (I realize how ironic that sounds). I have no idea if jello can go bad, and if freezing it can delay that process (sounds like another experiment).

Now, if you think that this one bad experiment will stop me from freezing various random things that weren’t ment to be frozen, think again. Pudding seems the next logical choice. Well, maybe not so much logical as not-so-random. I have no idea what the results will be – I’m not even sure what pudding is, exactly, other than delicious – but I am sure they’ll be mighty interesting :p.

Update! — 01/14/05

So apparently it is possible to make successful jello popsicles. These are sometimes advertised as ‘dripless’ popsicles (something I’ve heard of, but never realized there was jello in them).