Adding Layers To Your Jell-O Is An Easy Way To Make Dessert Look Fancy On A Budget. Here's How To Do It

Jell-O just might be the world's most perfect summer dessert. Nostalgic for many, it's a key ingredient in a wide variety of vintage desserts, such as the old school 7 Up Jell-O salad still enjoyed throughout the Midwestern United States. It's even popular globally, gracing many a dessert table in Australia as flummery — a creamy, fruity mousse made of Jell-O and evaporated milk. Since these desserts require little to no heating to prepare and must be served cold to prevent them from melting, they're pretty much the perfect treat to help beat the heat.

Additionally, Jell-O makes a beautiful, budget-friendly dessert. Showcased in an elegant class container, the brightly colored gelatin takes on a jewel-like quality — especially if you employ a trick or two to create clean stripes of color and flavor. We've all seen the gorgeous layered Jell-O shots composed of different flavors of gelatin separated by layers of creamy white. The good news is that making these treats (including zero-proof versions) is pretty easy, provided, of course, you have a bit of time and patience.

The colored layers in these desserts are just various Jell-O flavors made according to package instructions (less half the liquid if you like a denser texture), while the white layers are some kind of fatty cream combined with unflavored gelatin. The idea is to pour each layer into your containers, chill until nearly set, then add the next one. The process is easy, but you need plenty of time to achieve neat, tidy layers.

The biggest challenge in creating your own jiggly masterpiece is the wait time between pouring layers. Allowing each Jell-O mixture to cool slightly before pouring it into your chosen container helps with this (in addition to helping keep previous layers intact), but you still need at least 30 minutes between pours. Even then, you have to carefully spoon each layer over the others to keep them from mixing, as you want them to be just set enough to be stable but still loose enough to fuse together into a composed dessert.

One quick-setting method that will have your Jell-O ready in a jiff includes adding ice cubes to each mixture to help it cool more quickly. However, this could distort your layers if you scoop too deeply while removing excess ice. It also adds a needlessly finicky step to an already finicky process, but you can modify this advice by placing your container in an ice bath in the fridge. This should help shorten setting times without ruining those perfectly straight stripes.

Of course, before you even get started making this pretty treat, you'll need to pick your flavors based on color and season. For instance, blue raspberry and red strawberry would be delicious with layers of coconut cream for Independence Day. Cranberry and lime Jell-O separated by gelatinized sweetened condensed milk could be delicious for Christmas in July, while the classic ROYGBIV pattern is a must for celebrations during Pride Month.