Patriotic Striped Jello Shots

Happy holiday weekend! 

As an American living in Canada, I got lucky as far as holidays go. All the major ones are the same (except Thanksgiving. . . But I suppose a harvest holiday has gotta be during the harvest) and all the  minor ones seem to line up too, one way or another. 

To fill in my American compatriots, July 1^st in Canada is (aptly named) Canada Day, which celebrates the confederation of Canada into an official country in 1867. Meanwhile, stateside, July 4^th is. . . Well, it’s the Fourth of July. Okay, it’s Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

So Americans? Happy Fourth of July! Canadians? Happy (belated) Canada Day! Now that the history lesson’s over, let’s do some shots. 

Jello shots, I mean. You could do some regular shots, if you wanted to. Or not. But either way, you should totally find an excuse to make these little bites of strawberry flavoured jello and watermelon vodka with a hit of lime. It’s like summertime in your mouth. 

I picked up the inspiration for this on one of my favourite blogs, Bakers Royale, where Naomi made gorgeous, perfect, multi-striped red, white and blue shots for the Fourth.  I simplified a little when I made these striped red and white shots for Canada Day. . . and I might have popped ‘em on a blue plate to show a little love for my country of birth.  

These festive fingerfoods are great for a party, and while these ones were mildly alcoholic, you could easily make a non-alcoholic version if you don’t drink or you’ll be serving to kids. 

Because I replicated the recipe posted at Bakers Royale almost exactly, rather than republish the recipe and instructions here I’m going to send you over to Naomi’s blog and let you look at how she did it. I’m doing you a favor here, her stuff is going to make you want to lick your screen. Really. Trust me. You’re welcome.  Here’s the link to her jello shot post, once again.

However, because I did run into a few problems and pitfalls in my attempts to recreate her results, I'll give you a few hints so your jello shots can come out perfectly on the first try. . . unlike mine. 

Check after the jump for some tips on making these and some photos of what your jello shots should, um, definitely not look like. 

A few tips: 

 

+ At Bakers Royale, Naomi used both regular-sized muffin pans and mini muffin pans to create her jello shots. During my attempts, I found that the regular muffin pan produced shots that were really large, almost dessert-sized rather than a one-bite shot. I would definitely recommend a mini muffin pan; that’s what I used for the shots pictured above. 

+ Don't slack on greasing the muffin wells in between batches, or you'll be a sad panda eating jello out of muffin wells with a spoon over your sink. 

+ If, while you’re waiting for your layers to set, the reserved liquid jello starts to get lumpy or set at all, you can smooth it out by immersing the bowl in another, larger bowl filled with hot water (i.e. a hot water bath). Stir it until it’s smooth again. Don’t use jello that’s started to set or has any lumps! That’s what I did on one of my batches, and you can see the results below. 

+ That said, if your jello shots don’t turn out for some reason or another, you cannot remelt them from totally set, the gelatin will not re-gel. 

+ The recipe at Bakers Royale does note this, but to emphasize, if you use a mini muffin pan the proportions in the recipe creates 72 jello shots. That is quite a few. I didn’t pay attention, so I ended up with way more jello shots than I needed. Be prepared to scale the recipe back if you’re not feeding a whole crowd. 

 

 (Still delicious. . . but you can do better.)