Valentine’s Day

I don’t often post recipe fails here. Every once in a while I share one because I have learned something from the failure. Sometimes I show those fails because they end up tasting so amazing that I have to share them anyway. (Talking about you, Gold Nugget Cake!) Today I am showing you a failed recipe just so you can have the recipe and do better than I did. Plus, you might notice that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so I’m running out of time.

I also want to note that these are fast cellphone pictures, too. I took them quickly because I was afraid if I wasted any time the Jell-O would slide off the cake. Please forgive the quality of them.

I wanted to make this recipe I mentioned from the 1944 Dessert Magic cookbook. If you missed that post, you can click here to find out more about the cookbook. It’s all about Jell-O!

The Jell-O just would not set completely. I decided that we’d try to make the recipe anyway. I bought heart cookie cutters just for this and I was determined to make it work.

It didn’t.

With the help of my youngest son I managed to make one heart that looked decent. We put regular packaged Cool Whip on it because we had some on hand and were hoping to show how quick and easy this recipe was. We had planned to make it with my littlest girls. This just didn’t happen. I have total faith that it would work if tried again, but I was out of Jell-O and time at this point.

But wait!

There was another suggestion in a section that included some quick Jell-O snacks that didn’t require molds. It called for cubes of cake and Jell-O mixed in a bowl and covered with whipped cream. We made a bowl of that from the remaining Jell-O and cake and it worked so much better.

Results

This was a frustrating baking day, but definitely not the end of the world. Sometimes days like this just happen. We ended up with a nice bowl of white cake cubes and strawberry Jell-O that we were able to munch on. We also now own a terrific set of heart-shaped cookie cutters that we’ll use again. AND the recipe included a note about using four leaf clover shapes and lime Jell-O for St. Patrick’s Day…

Happy Valentine’s Day!