Nickelodeon Magazine 'Aquari-Yum" Recipe

Nickelodeon Magazine 'Aquari-Yum" Recipe

Grimey

The Summer Survival continues and today we are looking at a somewhat edible recipe! I recently acquired this Nickelodeon summer activity book called "Are We Having Fun Yet?" How the hell could I pass up a book with Zelda Van Gutters and Stick Stickley at the beach on the cover for a measly $7? I didn't, because I could never. Anyways, while browsing through the heavily penned, penciled and markered up pages, I came across a Jell-O recipe.... Aquari-yum. It is summery, has gummy fish and is easy to make so, naturally, I felt it was necessary to travel out into the apocalypse and get the few ingredients I needed to make this.

 I'm not going to lie, I barely read the directions and, in hindsight, the end result of this recipe may have looked a little more presentable had I stuck to the directions. Anyways, I made the Jell-O as instructed on the packaging. There were a few different kinds of blue gelatin but the blue raspberry Starburst flavor looked the most appealing to me. Plus, it smells like blue popsicles; the best flavor in the bunch. Score.

    The recipe says to set aside 2 cups of the gelatin liquid and pour the rest in a fish bowl... the box I got only makes 2 cups. So, there in lies the problem. I ended up just pouring all the liquid in the fish bowl and it barely filled it half way.

Before I put the Jell-O in the fridge, I dumped some bright pink "sugar pearls" in the bottom to replicate gravel. This wasn't part of the recipe but, again, I wasn't really sticking to it much. Nerds candy probably would've looked cooler and a little more convincing. After about an hour in the fridge, I stabbed some gummy fish and sour octopi in the semi firm gelatin and placed it back in the refrigerator until firm.

    If you followed the recipe, the 2 cups of reserved gelatin is used for chopping up to look like waves on the surface of the fishbowl. Instead, I dumped a bunch of whipped cream on top and called it a day. It also mentions that you can strategically place a few gummies on top to make it look like fish are leaping out. And VOILA! We have our very own sad looking edible Jell-O Aquari-yum!

Right off the bat, the flavor of the Jell-O is pretty true to the smell and matches up nicely with the whipped cream like most Jell-O flavors do. However, the gummy fish kind of hardened up. It really made for some awful texture differences making it very hard to enjoy. The crunchy pearl sprinkles on the bottom were ok, nothing amazing. Based on presentation alone, my skill level is somewhere between 5 year old and Nailed It gameshow contestant.

    The next day, pretty much everything turned into mush. The gummys were basically the same consistency as the Jell-O, or worse, and the sprinkles disintegrated. Kinda looks like someone vomited after drinking a bunch of alien brain hemorrhage shots.

CONCLUSION:

For how simple this is, it turned out horrible. Don't make this.