Jell-O Pudding Pops!
It's no secret that one of the main drivers to this blogging hobby is yapping about stuff I loved as a kid. Sure it has been done hundreds of times by hundreds of different bloggers but a horse of a different color weaves a different sweater. Is that how that saying goes?
"Back in the 80's", before our innocence was just recently shattered by the accusations that America's surrogate Dad, Bill Cosby, was a pill sneaking perv-o, he was pitching one of the best snack/desserts of all time and even better, the tagline was "Mom approved". Yes, Jell-O Pudding pops were all the rage and Holy Toledo did I embrace that love. Not only did they come in straight vanilla and chocolate but other flavors like butterscotch, swirl, caramel-swirl and even the weird cousin, fruity gelatin. They were so good that a box in the house rarely lasted a week even though I mentally rationed them.
Just like the powers that be in food land, they were discontinued in the nineties only to see a reemergence in the market around 2004, albeit smaller in size and with fewer flavor options. I personally don't remember them back around that time because I was in and out of the country but thankfully we have old X-Entertainment articles to preserve such things.
Yet again, five years later, Jello-Pudding Pops left us and this time, they have not been seen UNTIL!!! I ran into this box the other day in Walmart. You can now make your own Jell-O Pudding Pops from the confines of your very own kitchen and all you need is this-
Milk! Just kidding, you'll need the kit because it comes with four packets of chocolate and vanilla pudding, cute little popsicle molds and, of course, the plastic sticks. It's all pretty basic stuff but then again I have seen those who struggle with box macaroni and cheese and ramen so I don't know the threshold of basic. I'll just say, if you can make cereal you can make pudding and freeze it.
How did I live without a mixer? I know that sounds weird coming from a dude in his thirties but wow this has made an impact in my life. Sure, making Jell-O pudding isn't on Kitchenaid's boasting list but if you have the tools, it has the talent.
This is always the part that I jack up. How to get a bowl full of thick pudding into six little containers without turning my entire kitchen counter into a mudslide. This takes one of those things that I have none of when it comes to simple projects and that is patience. You should see me paint! I would say something artistic like "I get into my work" but you know and I know I am a no-talent dillweed when pouring something from point A to point B.
Hey McGuyver, suck ass! A simple ziplock bag and a pair of scissors and I have a pinpoint accuracy. I could fill a hole with pudding from across the room if I had to. (Should I stop? I am saying...so much.)
I know that this is a common trick but let me have my Alton Brown moment.
And here we are folks! Notice the clean counter surface and the not-so-messy sides of the popsicle molds. A very important note though, make sure you break the sticks from each other unless you want three popsicles at once when they freeze. Found that out on the second try.
The last and most important stage of this journey is placing them in a freezer for about four hours or until you can remove them from their molds. I left them in there for a couple days and as you can see on this video of the final product, it took some effort to get them loose. That effort was hot water and an embarrassing video of one handed struggling.
To be honest, this video was pretty unnecessary but I am trying to use this GoPro camera for more posts in the future especially while traveling. Nothing will make you look more like an asshole than a huge documentary looking camera at a restaurant. I know, I do that from time to time. But it turns out, it's not a bad little device for short quips and reviews!
Checkout my taste test of literally frozen pudding. Kids today will never know the struggle of index card catalogs in the library or chord phones but they will also never know the taste of a real Jell-O Pudding Pop. So who is the richer, I ask you?