Jelly Boats

I am still a grown up kid who enjoys eating jelly :) The colors, flavors and their shaky shining texture and look make it the most exciting dessert :)

Years back, even before jelly mixes were available in India, my grandma used to make these china grass sweets and we used to call it "Glass Halwa". This was one of the sweets that I was extremely fond of and my mom conveniently used to make these to bribe me ;)

I remember seeing these boats long back during a random browsing session(sadly don't have the source book marked :( ) and the inspiration was stuck somewhere subconsciously. Last day when I was having orange which is part of my daily diet for quite some time, this idea struck me and I was off to make it right away :)

Its a simple yet super attractive dessert to serve for kids :) I am sure any kid would get swept off his foot when these cute jelly boats are offered :)

Ingredients:

Orange/Mosambi - 1
Agar agar(China grass) - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Water - 3 cups
Food color
Essence

Method:

Cut the orange into half and scoop out the fruit and carefully scrape out the membrane, taking care not to make a hole in the skin of the oranges. Keep them aside.

Chop the china grass sheets into small bits and measure them using standard cup.

Take 3 cups of water in a pan and add the china grass to it. Keep stirring in medium flame until it dissolves completely. Once it is totally dissolved, add the sugar to it and mix well. Finally add the food color and essence as per your choice.

Allow it to come to room temperature. Do not let it to set in the pan, just allow the temperature to fall.

Now fill each of the hollow orange halves with jelly right to the top.

You can place them in muffin or egg trays to keep them steady.

Refrigerate until set and then trim the orange halves so that the skin of the oranges is level with the jelly. Cut the oranges in half again with a sharp knife to get the boat shape.

Cut triangles and rectangles out of paper and punch them with tooth pics to make the flag. Secure them on the jelly boats to make sails :)

Tips:

Jelly shake is one super yummy drink that you can make with the left over jellies. Just pulse the jellies with some milk and cream to make the shake :)

Add more sugar if required.

Pulsing the jellies in the mixie gives it a granita(granular) texture which is absolutely yummy :)

Note:

I used vanilla essence and green food color for the green jelly boats.

I used store bought strawberry jelly mix for making the red ones. Follow the instructions given in the pack but reduce the quantity of water to make the jelly firm enough to stick to the peel.

You can even make jellies with the orange juice by replacing the water with orange juice in the above recipe.

Be versatile by making your own flavors or using other fruit juices for your jellies :)

You can also use setting agents like gelatin instead of agar agar(china grass).

If you wish to make glass halwa by setting it just on a flat large mould, you can increase the water quantity in the above recipe to 4 cups.

Written by: Nithya

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