Gelatin dessert

Gelatin Dessert

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Gelatin dessert

The most common culinary use for gelatin

Gelatin

Gelatin is a translucent, colorless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and mostly bones. It has been commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceutical, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing....
is as a main ingredient in varieties of gelatin desserts. Unprepared gelatin for desserts is often marketed as a flavored powder or concentrated gelatinous solid.

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Regional naming

In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, Ireland
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
, and many of the Commonwealth Nations
Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, also known as the Commonwealth or the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organization of fifty-three independent member states....
gelatin desserts are called jelly.
In the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
and Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
gelatin desserts are called gelatin, gels and jello (generic name based on the brand name Jell-O
Jell-O

Jell-O is a brand name belonging to U.S.-based Kraft Foods for a number of gelatin desserts, including fruit gels, puddings and no-bake cream pies....
).

Production

To make gelatin desserts, typically powdered gelatin is mixed with sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Human taste buds interpret its flavor as sweet. Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple , and in many other sources....
, and additives such as adipic acid

Adipic acid

Adipic acid is the organic compound with the chemical formula 42. From the industrial perspective, it is the most important dicarboxylic acid: About 2.5 billion kilograms of this white crystalline powder are produced annually, mainly as a precursor for the production of nylon....
, fumaric acid

Fumaric acid

Fumaric acid is the chemical compound with the formula HO2CCH=CHCO2H. This white crystalline compound is one of two isomeric unsaturated dicarboxylic acids, the other being maleic acid wherein the carboxylic acid groups are cis....
, sodium citrate

Sodium citrate

Trisodium citrate has the chemical formula of Na3C6H5O7. It is sometimes referred to simply as sodium citrate, though sodium citrate can refer to any of the three sodium salts of citric acid....
, and artificial flavorings and food colors. Very hot water is added to swell and melt the powdered gelatin. The dessert gels slowly as it cools.

Because the collagen is processed extensively, the final product is not categorized as a meat or animal product

Animal product

Animal products are either produced by an animal or taken from the body of an animal. The term is primarily used in relation to Diet , particularly for Vegetarianism, Veganism and those concerned with maintaining a Kashrut, Halaal, or raw food diet diet....
by the US federal government.

Safety

While eating tainted beef can lead to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is a very rare and incurable degeneration neurology that is fatal. Among the types of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy found in humans, it is the most common....
(vCJD) in humans, there are no known cases of vCJD transmitted through collagen products such as gelatin.

Gelatin shots

Vodka jelly, (often known as Jell-O Shots in the US) is a party food where some sort of alcohol

Alcoholic beverage

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol . Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and distilled beverage....
, usually rum

Rûm

R?m, also Roum or Rhum , is a very indefinite term used at different times in the Muslim world to refer to the Balkans and Anatolia generally, and for the Byzantine Empire in particular, for the Seljuk Sultanate of R?m in Asia Minor, and for Greeks inhabiting Ottoman Empire or modern Turkey territory as well as for Greek Cypriots....
, vodka

Vodka

Tequila

Tequila is an blue agave distilled beverage made primarily in the area surrounding Tequila, Jalisco, in the northwest of Guadalajara, Jalisco and in the highlands of the western Mexican state of Jalisco....
or sometimes even grain alcohol

Neutral grain spirit

Neutral grain spirit is a clear, colorless, flammable liquid that is distilled from cereal grain and has a very high ethanol content. The term neutral refers to the fact that it lacks any flavor derived from the Mashing used to distill it, nor does it have any flavor added to it after distillation ....
replaces some of the water or fruit juice used to congeal the gel.

The American satirist and mathematician Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer

Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an United States singer-songwriter, satire, pianist, and mathematics. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater....
has been rumored to have been the first to invent the gelatin shot in the 1950s while working for the National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a Cryptology Intelligence agency of the Federal government of the United States, administered as part of the United States Department of Defense....
, where he developed vodka

Vodka

Vodka is a distilled beverage. It is a clear liquid which consists of mostly water and ethanol purified by distillation ? often multiple distillation ? from a Fermentation substance, such as cereal , potatoes or sugar beet molasses, and an insignificant amount of other substances such as flavorings or unintended impurities....
gelatin as a way to circumvent a restriction of alcoholic beverages on base, but the claim that he was first is untrue. The earliest published recipe dates from 1862, found in by Jerry Thomas

Jerry Thomas

Jeremiah P. Thomas was an United States bartender; because of his pioneering work in popularizing cocktails across the United States, he is considered "the father of American mixology." In addition to writing the wikt:seminal work on cocktails, his creativity and showmanship established the image of the bartender as a creative professional...
: the recipe calls for gelatin, cognac, rum, and lemon juice.

The maximum alcohol content is somewhere between 19 and 20 oz. of vodka per 3 oz. package of Jell-O powder, or about 30% alcohol by volume

Alcohol by volume

File:Absinthe ABV.jpgAlcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage . The abv standard is used worldwide....
.

Alternatives

Some gelatinous desserts can be made with agar

Agar

Agar or agar agar is a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed. Historically and in a modern context, it is chiefly used as an ingredient in desserts throughout Japan, but in the past century has found extensive use as a solid substrate to contain Growth medium for microbiology work....
instead of gelatin, allowing them to congeal more quickly and at higher temperatures (40°C, as opposed to 15°C for gelatin). Agar is a gelatinous product made from seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthos ocean algae. The term includes some members of the rhodophyta, phycophyta and green algae....
, which is itself composed mainly of algae. Agar is especially common in quick jelly powder mix and Asian jelly desserts; additionally, vegans

Veganism

Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind....
and vegetarians sometimes use agar to replace animal-derived gelatin. Agar is more closely related to pectin

Pectin

Pectin is a structural heteropolysaccharide contained in the primary cell walls of terrestrial plants. It was first isolated and described in 1825 by Henri Braconnot....
and other gelling plant carbohydrate

Carbohydrate

Carbohydrates or saccharides are the most abundant of the four major classes of biomolecules. They fill numerous roles in living things, such as the storage and transport of energy and structural components ....
s than to gelatin.

Another vegetarian alternative to gelatin is carrageenan

Carrageenan

Carrageenans or carrageenins are a family of linear sulphated polysaccharides extracted from red seaweeds. The name is derived from a type of seaweed that is abundant along the Ireland coastline....
. This alternative sets more firmly than agar, and is often used in kosher and halaal cooking. Though it, too, is a type of seaweed, it tends not to have an unpleasant smell during cooking as agar sometimes does.

Chemistry

Gelatin consists of partially hydrolyzed

Hydrolysis

Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction during which one or more water are split into hydrogen and hydroxide ions which may go on to participate in further reactions....
collagen

Collagen

Collagen is the main protein of connective tissue in animals and the most abundant protein in mammals, making up about 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein content....
, a protein

Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
which is highly abundant in some animal tissues such as bone and skin. Although many gelatin desserts incorporate fruit, some fresh fruits contain proteolytic enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
s; these enzymes cut the gelatin molecule into peptide

Peptide

Peptides are short polymers formed from the linking, in a defined order, of a-amino acids. The link between one amino acid residue and the next is known as an amide chemical bond or a peptide bond....
s (protein fragments) too small to form a firm gel. The use of such fresh fruits in a gelatin recipe results in a dessert that never 'sets'.

Specifically, pineapple

Pineapple

Pineapple is the common name for an edible tropical plant and also its fruit. It is native to the southern part of Brazil, and Paraguay. This herbaceous plant perennial plant grows to tall with 30 or more trough-shaped and pointed leaves long, surrounding a thick plant stem....
contains the protease

Protease

A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain, which form a molecule of protein....
(protein cutting enzyme) bromelain

Bromelain

Bromelain can refer to one of two protease enzymes extracted from the plant family Bromeliaceae, or it can refer to a combination of those enzymes along with other compounds produced in an extract....
, kiwi fruit contains actinidin, fig

FIG

FIG may refer to:* F?d?ration Internationale de Gymnastique* International Federation of Surveyors...
s contain ficain

Ficain

Ficain is an enzyme which is derived from figs latex. It is of a family of proteases known as the cysteine endopeptidases, a group that also includes papain derived from papaya latex, bromelase extracted from pineapple stem, calpain, caspases, cathespisin B, and chymopapain....
, and both papaya

Papaya

The papaya , is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, in the genus Carica. It is native to the tropics of the Americas, and was cultivated in Mexico several centuries before the emergence of the Mesoamerica....
and pawpaw

Pawpaw

Pawpaw is a genus of eight or nine species of small trees with large leaves and fruit, native to eastern North America. The genus includes the largest edible fruit indigenous to the continent....
contain papain

Papain

Papain is a cysteine protease hydrolase enzyme present in papaya and mountain papaya ....
. Cooking or canning

Canning

File:Berthold Weiss Canned Foods.jpgFile:Canned food factory .jpgCanning is a method of food preservation in which the food is processed and sealed in an airtight container....
denature

Denaturation (biochemistry)

Denaturation is a process in which proteins or nucleic acids lose their structure by application of some external stress or compound for example, treatment of proteins with strong acids or bases, high concentrations of inorganic salts, organic compound solvents , or heat....
and inactivate the proteases, so canned pineapple, for example, works fine in a gelatin dessert.

Gelatin dessert

Regional naming

Production

Safety

Gelatin shots

Alternatives

Chemistry

See also

External links