Looking for a positively party stopping dish to bring to your next retirement celebration? Tired of being asked to bring food to events you’re not even really interested in attending in the first place? Want to solidly cement your child’s educational future by bringing something to the next bake sale that the PTA will be talking about for years? Or are you just looking for something sweet that you can really sink your teeth into?
If you answered yes to any of these questions…do I have the dessert for you!
Behold, the In-Dentured Jello mold.
This dish was inspired by an anonymous brave soul who went before me to create and then quietly share this monstrosity (which was then unleashed upon the social media world via Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, and many others) which means I am the first to admit that no, I am not the original creator (but as there are zero tutorials online for how to accomplish this jiggling monument to oral fixation, I am going to claim the title of the original creator of the full, readily available, online tutorial.)
This also means, if you do know who was the original mad genius to come up with this dish, please let me know!
To start this toothy adventure, you will need:
For the gums:
- 1/2 package unflavored gelatin powder
- 1 package red colored flavored gelatin (I used raspberry, but cherry or strawberry would work equally well)
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1/2 cup cold water
- 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk (give or take)
For the teeth:
- 1 1/2 envelope unflavored gelatin powder
- 1/4 cup cold water
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
For the clear gelatin encapsulation:
- 4 cups boiling water
- 4 cups cold water
- 4 packages unflavored gelatin powder
- 2 teaspoons citric acid
- 2-3 cups sugar (depends on how sweet you want the final gelatin)
You will also need:
- Large pot to boil stuff in
- Two microwave safe bowls
- Wooden spoon
- Eye Dropper or very small spoon
- Denture mold (I got mine online here)
- Small food safe paint brush or some clean, wadded up paper towel
- Bundt pan
- Cooking spray
- Plastic food wrap
- Medium sized plastic food storage box with a lid
Okay, enough of that…let’s make some teeth! The first thing we need to do is make our dentures, starting with the gums.
Pour 1/4 cup cold water in the bottom of your pot and sprinkle with your 1/2 package unflavored gelatin. Allow the gelatin to bloom for about 5-10 minutes. Once it’s bloomed, add in your red gelatin and mix well. Add in your 1/2 cup of boiling water and turn your stove onto low. The idea is to bring up the heat of the water warm enough that all the gelatin is dissolved, but not so warm that it boils.
Once your gelatin is dissolved, add in your sweetened condensed milk a little at a time until you achieve a proper “gum” pink. I found this happened right around 1/4 a cup, but add more or less depending on your preferred hue.
Transfer this to your microwave safe bowl and set aside while we move onto the teeth.
Let your pot cool and then clean it out (or get a clean one, it’s up to you how many dishes you want to wash). Pour your 1/4 cup cold water into the bottom of your cooled pot and sprinkle your unflavored gelatin on top. Allow to bloom for 5-10 minutes.
Once it’s bloomed, add in your 1/2 cup boiling water and again bring the temperature up to just below a simmer so all your gelatin dissolves.
After all the gelatin has dissolved, mix in your 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk.
Remove from heat and transfer to your second microwave-safe bowl and allow the white liquid gelatin to come to room temperature.
While your white gelatin is cooling, let’s prep your denture mold. Spritz a small amount of cooking spray on a food-safe paint-brush or corner of your paper towel and give all the interior spaces of your mold a quick wipe down, ensuring that the entire thing has a thin light layer of oil. While this isn’t necessarily a required step, it does make getting your final gelatin product out a million times easier.
Now that your white gelatin has cooled, carefully use your tiny spoon or eye-dropper to fill the teeth of your mold with white.
Pop the mold into the fridge for about 15 minutes so the white sets.
Once your white gelatin is set, gently spoon some room temperature gummy pink over the top of your teeth and use it to fill the entire mold (there is a chance your pink gummy gelatin has set by now, which is why we have it in a microwave-safe bowl. Gently zap for about 15 seconds and then allow to recool to room temp before adding it to your white layer. Adding it while it’s too hot will melt the white layer and you’ll just end up with a swirly pink and white mess.)
Return the filled mold to the fridge and allow to fully set for at least 60 minutes.
Once your molded dentures are fully set, gently remove from your mold and admire your work!
Continue making dentures following the above steps until you run out of your gelatin. I found this recipe makes roughly 16-18 dentures, depending on how full you fill them.
Take your molded gelatin dentures and store them for now in the covered Tupperware container in the fridge.
Bloom your 4 packages of unflavored gelatin in your 4 cups of cold water in your pot on the stove. Give the gelatin 5-10 minutes to really soak up the water.
Once it’s bloomed, add in your 4 cups of boiling water and your 2- 3 cups of sugar (personal preference here…taste the mix and see if you want it sweeter or not) and bring the temperature of your stove up to low. We’ll essentially just be repeating the steps from the dentures we made earlier, but making a much larger quantity…so keep that temperature just low enough to melt all the gelatin and dissolve the sugar but not come to a boil.
Once the mixture is completely melted/dissolved and crystal clear, sprinkle in your 2 teaspoons of citric acid and remove from heat.
Allow to cool to room temperature.
Gently stick 4 or 5 of your gelatin dentures into your sludgy clear gelatin (white teeth side down as that will be the “up” side when you de-mold) and pop back into the fridge for another 30 minutes.
Add another layer of clear gelatin and again let it set up to sludge stage before adding more dentures.
Continue sludging your clear gelatin and adding in dentures until you run out of dentures and you’re happy with how your layered mold looks. Make sure you save enough clear gelatin to put one final layer over everything at the very end.
Cover the entire thing with plastic wrap and pop into the fridge for a good 6-8 hours to completely solidify up.
To de-mold your masterpiece, use the flat part of your hand to gently pull the edges of your gelatin away from the edges of your mold. Because we used a little cooking oil, it should release fairly easily. If you didn’t oil your pan first or you notice your gelatin is sticking more than you like, a quick dip of the outside of your bundt pan in hot water should do the trick.
Invert your mold over a plate and shimmy it just enough to release the seal between the gelatin and the sides of your pan. Hopefully, the whole thing should slide right out and land on your plate with a very satisfying “plop.”
Step back and marvel at the disturbingly gorgeous monstrosity you just made.
Slice and serve to your closest friends, bridal shower, den mother meeting, etc.
Or, if you’re like me, put it in the sun and really appreciate how absolutely disturbingly beautiful this thing actually is…
No matter what you do with it…
Bone appetite!
Looking for more dishes to bring to public functions that are guaranteed to get you out of future food obligations? Why not bring a Feast for the Beast meat platter or some shockingly technicolored and spicy Basilisk Eggs?
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Is the raspberry jello a 3 ounce or 6 ounce package for the dentures