Red Raspberry Salad.

I've been wanting to recreate one of Aunt Carrie's recipes and finally got some time after dinner this evening. This is one of the tastier-sounding ones, a raspberry Jello "salad" clipped from the newspaper and pasted to a 3x5" card.









Red Raspberry Salad

1 package raspberry or strawberry gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 cup applesauce
1 package frozen raspberries or strawberries
1 cup sour cream
1 cup miniature marshmallows

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add applesauce and frozen fruit. When softened, let set until firm.

Combine sour cream and marshmallows, and let set for one hour. Whip with electric mixer, then spread over chilled gelatin. Let set overnight.

As is the case with many older recipes, there's a frustrating vagueness here. What size Jello package? What size frozen fruit package? What size pan to put it all in, for that matter?

Looking at the other ingredient amounts given, I figured that the package of Jello called for was the standard 3-ounce size, and that the pan would probably be an 8x8" dish. I don't know what the size of the frozen fruit package would have been...I seem to recall seeing fruit sold in 10-ounce packages years ago, but the small sizes seem to have gone away.

I am notorious for being a recipe tweaker, meaning I can never make a recipe exactly the way it's written. I usually think I know better--and in all modesty, I am usually right! But I decided to make this exactly as written....with one change. Not a big one! I just doubled it. So: a 6-ounce package of Jello (with Ironman on the front because apparently the Avengers are selling Jello now), a 16-ounce package of fruit because that seems to be the standard size now, and I poured it into an attractive white oval dish I have that is roughly equivalent to a 9x13" pan. Doubled, the ingredients are:

1 6-ounce package of raspberry or strawberry Jello
2 cups boiling water.
2 cups applesauce (I used unsweetened)
1 16-ounce package frozen raspberries or strawberries
2 cups (16-oz container) sour cream (I used reduced-fat)
2 cups miniature marshmallows

I chose raspberries (and raspberry Jello) because I love them just a little more than I love strawberries (but not by much.) My grocery store also had a mixed bag of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries that would make an amazing dessert, but I was trying to stick to the recipe (for once.)

The topping for this dish is a little weird. I've looked at many vintage Jello "salad" recipes, and I truly have never seen a topping of marshmallows dissolved and whipped in sour cream. I thought it sounded intriguing. You need to let the mixture sit for at least an hour before whipping it with the mixer, so the marshmallows can break down. I was impatient and so there are some small lumps of marshmallow in my topping, but they may dissolve completely as it sits in the fridge overnight. We'll try this for our Fourth of July lunch tomorrow and I'll update the taste test then.

I think some finely chopped pecans or pistachios would look lovely scattered across the topping. I might add those later.

UPDATE: We enjoyed some raspberry salad after a hot day outside on the Fourth of July. I kept expecting the sour cream/marshmallow mixture to taste like Cool Whip for some reason, but after my taste buds adjusted, I found it enjoyable. The marshmallows sweetened the sour cream slightly, but it remained tangy, and was a nice contrast to the sweet Jello. My husband said it was "delicious and refreshing," and also "a little seedy." Which was true--we don't eat seeded fruits like raspberries too often even though I do love them. (I have a little diverticulitis problem.) I didn't find the raspberry seeds too obtrusive, though. We would recommend it for a hot summer day!