Hall of Shame: Kiwifruit Jellies

I have to admit that not all of the things we try here at 2DG are raging successes. I have had my share of culinary disasters. All the way back in the mid-80s, when I was but a mere child (well it seems that way now!), the first, and for a very long time ONLY cake I ever made was an Oreo Cake, from scratch of course. The recipe called for about a cup of crushed Oreos, as I recall. Well to my way of thinking, if a cup is good, a POUND is BETTER! So in went way more crushed Oreos than it called for, and into the oven went my cake. What came out later was not a nice fluffy tasty Oreo cake. Nope. I got crumbs. Lots and lots of crumbs. Evidently all those crushed cookies soaked up every drop of moisture. Oh well, live and learn.

Years later, I made one of those "impossible pies" for dinner, using canned salmon. I also used fish stock. And probably one other fishy ingredient. What I got was "impossible", all right...impossible to eat! But Mike, being the wonderful and smart man that he is, while I was grousing and scraping my plate down the disposal, was saying "No, Honey, it tastes good!" What a guy.

Well my most recent less than successful endeavor was a few weeks ago, when I was trying to use up about 8 or so kiwifruits that had accumulated in the fridge from our produce deliveries. I found a recipe for something called Kiwifruit Jellies, that sounded like they'd come out like those Spearmint Leaves or Orange Slice candies. The puree gels and you can cut it into whatever shapes you want. Sounds great!

I also read that kiwi fruit contain an enzyme that will prevent gelatin from setting up unless the kiwi puree is cooked to a certain temp, but that shouldn't be an issue here, since this was a recipe for jellies, and it called for cooking the puree for several minutes. Sooo...off I go.

I prepared the kiwifruit, pureed and cooked it as directed. I poured it into an 8 inch square pan, lined with wax paper, as instructed. I chilled it in the fridge for the prescribed amount of time. It looked like it was nicely set. With great anticipation, I picked up the wax paper edges to move it onto a cuting board and...instead of nice little wiggly jellies, it was still runny! So I put it back in the fridge for a while and tested it. No good. OK. So I transferred it to a sheet pan and put it in the freezer overnight.
The next morning, nope now I had slush.

I let is sit in there for a while longer, then I was tired of playing this game, and I rolled it up and wrapped it in plastic, and if I need some sort of sweet jelly/paste fruit type thing, I'll slice some off and put it in.

But at least I got a 2DG post out of it!