J: Using JELLO to Make Cookies

“You know the thing about good food – it brings people together,” (The  Princess and the Frog).

I believe that to be true. This is why we have a potluck for the two women’s Wednesday night groups once a month. Each month we have GOOD food and the talk and laughter flows. The newer people have the opportunity to meet everyone and soon begin to feel more at home in the group.

For this month my group provided the food; – Italian was our theme.

Too bad the orange cookie didn’t show up as bright as it really was. The most popular cookie was the yellow one. I think that is because it had chunky sugar on top.

I brought cookies. In fact, I even MADE the cookies, Jello cookies. They don’t have anything to do with Italian food, but they are cute, fun, and as it turns out, tasty.

I made Jello Cookies for two reasons. The first you know, for our potluck last night. The second reason is so that I’d have something to write for a “J” post.

The recipe I followed was from I Heart Naptime. The recipe is also billed as a play dough. I probably wouldn’t do that for two reasons.

• First, my dough was very sticky. So I don’t see it as being enjoyable to roll and play with.
• Second, the more you work food that has flour, the tougher the end product will be once it is baked. And in this case, tougher is not better.

However, the Jello cookie turned out to be delicious and a recipe I would make again.

This is the first time I used a baking mat. I will absolutely use it again and again. There is no greasing the pan, no cutting the parchment paper to fit, and an EASY clean up.

My tips  and observations. . . 

• Shaping. I used a 1 1/2 T. measuring spoon to scoop up dough. You can have the dough flat across the spoon or heaped. Mine was heaped. But as long as you are consistent it doesn’t matter which.
• Yield. I made a little more than 7 dozen. My count got messed up between phone calls, timers, and eating a few of the broken ones.
• My Experiment. I rolled some of the raw cookie dough balls in sugar and some in Jello powder. I preferred the powder. It gave the cookie a little sweet-tang.
• Extra flavouring. For the lemon Jello cookies I added 1/4 tsp of lemon extract.
  

  Rowan tasted a green cookie and thought it tasted like Skittles. And that’s a good description for what these cookies taste like. This is a yummy taste to me.

  For the orange Jello cookies I added 1/4 tsp of orange extract. While it did give the cookies a bit of a flavour punch, it is not really necessary.

• One colour only. If you want to devote one recipe to one colour use the bigger box. And add the colouring to the egg to let your beater do the “kneading” in. No need to get your hands in that mess.
• Amount of Jello per box. Each  3 oz box of Jello has a little more than 7 Tablespoons of powder. I used 3 T for each ball of dough. 2 T went into the dough. I used 1 T to roll the raw dough in. Next time I will roll all the cookies in the powder.
• How to flatten. I used the bottom of a glass (instead of a bowl) to flatten the cookies. Now I am on the hunt for a glass that has a decorative bottom. What an easy way to make a prettier cookie.
• Liquid food colouring for each ball of dough. For the lime Jello I used 3 drops of green. For the orange Jello I used 1 drop of red and 5 drops of yellow. For the lemon Jello I used 5 drops of yellow. For the cherry Jello I used 3 drops of red. I could taste the food colouring in the baked cookie. YUCK.
• Storing leftovers. I put the remainder of the Jello from each box into its own snack baggie with a note. I indicated  how many Tablespoons were left and how many drops of food colouring I used to colour the cookies.
• What to do with leftovers. I can either use the rest of the powder the next time I make the cookies. Or I can make some jiggly Jello. Us a little more than half the water the original recipe calls for.

Your Turn . . .

1. Have you ever made Jello Cookies? What did you think?
2. What are your tips and observations?
3. Any questions?

Related Posts . . . 

• Coloring Chunky White Sugar and Candy Sprinkles (just helen)
• I “Heart” Valentine’s Day Jell-O Cookies (just helen)

Recipes at Fruitfulwords that contain Jello.

• Red Stuff Aka Cranberry Jello Dessert
• Citrus Jello Salad (Shhh! It’s a Secret.)
• Making Stuff in the Kitchen Meme and Green Stuff Recipe

NOTE: This post is written for the Blogging From A to Z Challenge. There are 22 categories and my category is MI = Miscellaneous.

During the month of April I will post 26 times finishing up posts that have been in my draft fie for at least a year. For a list of all the posts go to the A-Z button on my header.

Today’s letter is J. The topic is JELLO Cookies.