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For a treat for my lunch, having bought a bunch of Jell-o brand instant flavored gelatin mixes, my husband decided to follow a recipe for "magic mousse", as printed here, involving "Cool-whip" whipped topping and Jell-o mix (gelatin, not a pudding mix). The final product came out fairly grainy, however, a texture I found somewhat offputting. Is this expected due to the ingredients in the recipe (clearly chosen for convenience rather than quality), or is this some problem with his technique?

Cascabel
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Yamikuronue
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    Its probably an artifact of the pudding, as I recall from my childhood, but I don't remember what causes it. Come to chat and we can talk about simple, wonderful mousses with just two ingedients: real whipped cream and chocolate. – SAJ14SAJ Aug 22 '13 at 14:15

2 Answers2

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It could just be that it wasn't mixed thoroughly - little droplets of dissolved gelatin intermingled with the cool whip would certainly give you a grainy texture. Whisking thoroughly, or even using a hand mixer, could avoid some of this.

But failing that, it's possible that it's simply prone to separation. Cool whip is a sort of fake cream, emulsified fats and water, and the dissolved jello is pretty much water. They might tend to separate a little before the gelatin makes it all set up. If that's the case, you probably have to work a little harder for your mousse; if the gelatin is added straight to the creamy/custardy base, there's no water-gelatin mixture to separate out.

Cascabel
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The grainy texture you tasted could be one of two things:

  1. The Gelatin pack wasn't stirred thoroughly enough.
  2. The Gelatin pack was old and didn't have all of it's dissolving properties.

Either way it's easy to fix.

Young Guilo
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