Thursday 23 July 2015

End of term jelly shots

The end of term is finally here, and was (of course) celebrate with hard liquor, frivolity and loud train journeys. Last summer I made hurricane jelly shots in orange peel, but then had to drive in last minute and forgot about them in the boot of my car. They melted and so when I got home, I fished out the peel, put the tub in the fridge and then ate the reset jelly with a spoon. Marvellous.

This summer I thought I would tackle a tequila sunrise jelly. When I was a kid, Father Hand used to hang out in the local Mexican restaurant which was run by a Californian and his British wife. These jelly shots were their speciality...naturally I never partook at that young age, except for the kind they made sans tequila. But, tequila and I are having a bit of a relationship renaissance recently and I had some leftover from my attempts at frozen strawberry margaritas a few weeks ago, so I thought I would give it a go.


The recipe I used was from here:

Grenadine Layer:
3/4 cup grenadine
1/4 cup water
1 sachet of gelatine granules

Orange Tequila Layer:
1/2 cup orange juice
1 sachet of gelatine granules
1/2 cup tequila

For the grenadine layer, pour the grenadine and water into a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatine onto it and whisk until dissolved. Stir over a low heat for a few minutes until smooth. Pour into the short glass - these are little plastic ones I got from Asda.

For the orange tequila layer, pour the orange juice into a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatine onto it and whisk until dissolved. Stir over a low heat for a few minutes until smooth.Remove from the heat and stir in the tequila. Carefully ladle over the set grenadine layer and refrigerate until fully set.

These were very potent; I enjoyed them a lot. A couple of drawbacks -
Firstly, I used vegegel because it was the only granulated gelatine I could get in my online shop. It was odd. It started setting almost before I got it off the heat. You can see the second one from the left looks a bit dodgy - this one was pretty much set on the sides of the beaker from which I was pouring it, so it's not properly moulded to the sides of the shot glass. The two layers were completely detached from one another even though I allowed not setting time between the two - just the time it took me to make up the orange layer. It was OK, but, meh. I wanted something where the orange and grenadine layers would merge a little.
Secondly, there was too much grenadine layer for my liking. The grenadine mixture filled up nearly 40 shot glasses but the tequila only made 18, because I wanted just a thin red strip. I think the grenadine in this cocktail serves as a little sweet hit at the end of your tequila and orange juice mixture, and I don't like too much of a sweet hit. Next time I think I will double the orange mixture, or halve the grenadine layer, if I can figure out how to halve a sachet of gelatine. In the end the remaining shot glasses were filled with a lazy girl's version of hurricane jellies -

1 cup dark rum
½ cup orange juice
Freshly squeezed juice of two limes
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons grenadine
1 sachet of gelatine granules

Put all the liquids except the rum in a saucepan and sprinkle over the gelatine. Heat gently until dissolved. Stir in the rum. Pour into shot glasses to set.

These weren't as nice as last year, when I did it properly, but they still went down well. I had people complaining on Facebook that their hangovers were all my fault, which I take as a compliment to be honest.

Happy summer!

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