Yesterday's dessert: Orange Jelly with Lemon and Cardamom

Niki from Esurientes - The Comfort Zone submitted this wonderful gelatin pudding for Sugar High Friday's #3. I love gelatin puddings but do not like your garden variety Jell-O brand which is nothing but sugar and food colouring. I n the picture below I was planning to put creme fraiche around it so that the yellow pudding could shine through. Unfortunately I dropped a blob of creme fraiche on top and that's what you see.

The difference between my recipe and Niki's I used President's Choice Organic's 100% Pure Orange Juice with Pulp, instead of going through the trouble of squeezing the juice out of the oranges, I used powdered gelatine and did not add water to the juices.

Orange Lemon Jelly with Cardamom

• 4 cups of 100% pure orange juice
• 2 tablespoons powdered gelatine
• 8 cardamom pods
• 1 pink grapefuit
• 1 lemon

Squeeze the grapefruit and the lemon, mix both juices and set aside. Put about 1 cup of orange juice into a small stainless steel pan, sprinkle the gelatine over it and set aside to soften. Pour the remaining orange juice into a saucepan. Break open the cardamom pods by pressing on them with the side of a large knife and add the whole lot to the orange juice. Heat the juice over medium heat, but do not allow it to boil. As soon as the juice is about to start bubbling, cover it with a lid and turn off the heat. Leave it to cool for about 15 minutes.

In the meantime heat the gelatine over gentle heat until melted. Add to the large pan of orange juice and add the grapefuit/lemon juices. Divide the mixture into 1/2-cup size gelatine containers, let cool completely and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until set.

Makes about ten/eleven 1/2 cup servings.

This gelatine has no sugar added and the grapefuit and lemon juices make it rather tart. I did not remove the cardamom pods. In fact I left the whole thing to float into the small containers. Once unmolded, the cardamom pieces could be seen inside the gelatine. Of course, if making this for company I would remove the cardamom bits. The flavour of cardamom is subtle and guests might not be able to identify it, but there is a difference from straight citrus juice that is extremelly appealing.