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22 July 2013

Vodka Jelly Watermelon


Careful. It may look cute but it will f**k you up.


Ingredients:
  • 1 Watermelon
  • Red fruit jelly - like a cherry, strawberry or raspberry one. You can either use a powdered or concentrated jelly. I used Hartley's Jelly cubes.
  • Vodka (may I suggest cheap, low quality one, like Russian Standard or Grey Goose. I may be getting a little bit political here...)
  • Boiled Water 
  • Cold Water
  • a couple of gelatin sheets
  • chocolate chips

  1. Cut the watermelon in half. Use a spoon, a scoop or whatever else suits you to remove the red pulp from the watermelon, leaving just a thin layer in, so that the 2 watermelon shell bowls you get as a result still appear red on the inside. Use the pulp for another recipe, like a fruit salad, or just eat it alone - we won't need it for the vodka jelly recipe.
  2. Fill in each watermelon with water all the way to the rim, and then transfer all that water into a measuring jug. This way you'll know the volume of jelly you'll need to fill them.
  3. The watermelon will keep oozing a lot of liquids. Leave it for a bit to dry, preferably upside-down over a rack. It's hard to tell how long this will take, as it depends on the size of the watermelon, the ambient temperature and air humidity etc. You want to wait long enough for the liquids to stop oozing, but not so long that the shell will wither or overdry.

For the vodka jelly:

  1. The general rule of thumb is to only use 75% of the liquid recommended on the label. Based on this calculate how many jellies you'll need to fill in both halves of the watermelon - for example, if the capacity of your watermelon bowls is 1.5 litre and your jelly calls for 1 litre of water, use 2 packets of jelly.
  2. Out of the 75% of liquids 1 part should be hot water, 1 part cold water and 1 part vodka. So, for example, if it says on the box to use 1 litre of water, you should use 250ml of cold water, 250ml of hot water and 250ml of vodka. I'll use this example in my recipe:
  3. Boil 250ml of water and mix in the jelly in a bowl. 
  4. Soak 2 gelatin sheets in cool water and then transfer them to the hot water with the fruit jelly. Mix until they're dissolved. Let it cool a bit (to room temperature).
  5. In the meantime, mix 250ml of Vodka and 250ml of cold water.
  6. Mix the jelly solution with the water and vodka.
  7. Fill the watermelons with the vodka jelly mixture and leave them in the fridge just long enough for the jelly to start setting.
  8. Using a skewer or any other utensil, push the chocolate chips into the watermelon, so that they look like seeds. Return the watermelon to the fridge for a couple of hours or until the jelly is fully set.
  9. Slice up and eat responsibly. They are surprisingly strong! :)






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