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!