This week I felt like making something sparkly and pretty, so I remade this Ginger Ale Salad recipe that I originally tested for Glory Days Magazine. Because what’s more sparkly than a gelatin?
This is Ginger Ale Salad!
AuthorRetroRuth
From The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, 1946
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Soak gelatin in cold water until it blooms. Add sugar to the boiling fruit juice and stir until mostly dissolved, then add the bloomed gelatin to this mixture, and stir again until it is dissolved. Add the salt, ginger ale and lemon juice. Stir lightly to avoid losing the carbonation in the ginger ale. Chill until partially set.
Add grapes, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, and candied ginger. Stir and pour into a 5 cup gelatin mold. Refrigerate until firm.
Ingredients
Directions
Soak gelatin in cold water until it blooms. Add sugar to the boiling fruit juice and stir until mostly dissolved, then add the bloomed gelatin to this mixture, and stir again until it is dissolved. Add the salt, ginger ale and lemon juice. Stir lightly to avoid losing the carbonation in the ginger ale. Chill until partially set.
Add grapes, orange, grapefruit, pineapple, and candied ginger. Stir and pour into a 5 cup gelatin mold. Refrigerate until firm.
Notes
This is a classic salad that introduced the idea of adding carbonated beverages to gelatin salads, which is quite possibly one of the greatest ideas for a sweet gelatin salad since the idea of adding fruit. Though in the books that I’ve read Fannie Farmer is credited with this original idea, this particular recipe is from the 1946 edition of the Joy of Cooking, which referred to this salad as, “about the best molded fruit salad.”
I love the cover of this edition!
The original recipe called for “Canton ginger”, which was high-quality crystalized or candied ginger, and recommended that this salad be served on lettuce with a cream mayonnaise garnish. We skipped the mayo, but hey, if you like mayo with your fruit I’m the last person to judge. In this book’s defense, it mostly likely refers to a homemade mayo, which was probably very good.
“It’s so sparkly. It’s fizzing while I’m eating it.”
“I know. I was in the mood for some sparkle.”
The Verdict: Delicious
From The Tasting Notes –
This is a really fun gelatin. I love the fizzy sparkle of ginger ale and the spiciness of the candied ginger. The mix of canned and fresh fruit is also a nice touch. This thing was packed with fruit, so if you like a little more wiggle in your gelatin, feel free to reduce the fruit. Otherwise really good. Nothing really to complain about here!
I may have to actually try to make it for the next potluck I get invited to.
Ginger Ale Salad is part of every Thanksgiving dinner in my family, and has been since the 1960s. Ours is a little different (no grapes, oranges, or fresh ginger; ours contains pecans and chopped celery in addition to the pineapple and grapefruit, and our Jello is lemon). I skip the mayo too.
I actually have this very same edition cookbook. I might have to try this. Sounds like it would be strangely settling to my morning sickness and fruit cravings.
My husband would love this, but I would need to adjust two items: he doesn’t like oranges and I don’t like grapefruit. Any suggestions for substitutions?
One thing I like is that this could easily be made more diabetic-friendly (DH is diabetic) by subbing Splenda for the sugar. Yeah, anachronistic, but to me, for this, that’s OK. 🙂
My mom used to make this for Thanksgiving dinner.
It’s yummy.
I hope you will try it the next time you want to take something out of the ordinary to a potluck. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
It used to be seriously fiddly to make, but now that we can buy peeled grapefruit segments in the produce department, the messiest part of the process can be bypassed.
You have to peel and halve the grapes. Yes, you do.
Sit down, relax, put on a a podcast or some nice music. There is no way to hurry this.
For the grapes: You can find for grape peeling instructions on youtube. I’ve always used the paring knife method, but I might try the melon baller next time.You’ll need to cut the grapes in half afterwards if you use the paring knife method.
For the grapefruit: First cut the rind off the grapefruit, cutting deeply enough to get the membrane too. Now cut the segments off the membranes by cutting down one side and up the other. (In other words, cut the segment off the membrane, not the membrane off the segment.) The cut the segments in half. That should be small enough.
For the mayo: I strongly recommend making your own. Making mayo is much easier than people make it out to be. You can whip it up in minutes with a little bit of practice.
Bon Appetit!