When we’re doing the grocery shopping, we’ll inevitable turn down the aisle with all the jellies. Next to all the various types of jellies is a shelf full of box-mix chilled desserts, amongst them a packet for jelly slice. Without fail, every single time Cameron will ‘notice it’ and mumble some variation of ‘mmm, jelly slice’. This is always a not-so-subtle hint towards me that next time I’m thinking of making a dessert, I should make jelly slice. Or even if I’m not thinking of making dessert, I should make jelly slice. Or basically that jelly slice should spontaneously happen pronto. So I decided to surprise him with a batch one weekend.
Jelly slice isn’t something that was a part of my childhood, or even adulthood, but it was very much a part of Cam’s. It was a dessert his Oma used to make for them all, and has continued on to be one of his favourite things. I was yet to try it for myself, so it seemed like as good a time as any to see what all the fuss was about.
Jelly slice is a tri-layered Australian dessert. It consists of a biscuit base, a cream, custard or cheesecake centre, and a layer of jelly on top. It’s delicious and incredibly simple to make.
The base is made like any cheesecake base: by blitzing or crushing up a whole bunch of sweet biscuits and mixing them with butter.
Then pressing it into a pan.
The filling can be made a number of ways. I went for a cream cheese and condensed milk filling. That’s poured into the pan and left to chill.
Last of all comes the jelly layer. Knowing your jelly helps here. I use Aeroplane jelly, and I know through making jelly cubes for parties that when made up as is it doesn’t cut very well. It’s inclined to tear rather than giving perfect edges. Adding an extra teaspoon of gelatine always makes it sturdy without becoming too set, so that’s what I did here. If you use another brand, this might be different.
Once that’s all set you can chop it up into squares of bars.
As I was cutting up this batch, Cam arrived at my place and crept into the kitchen. He started peeking at what I was making and asked, “is that. . . jelly slice?” with all the air of a child who’d just woken to find Santa delivered a stack of presents a month early.
I gave him offcuts to satiate his appetite while I went about chopping up the rest. He loved it so much I had to endure him singing songs about the jelly slice for the rest of the weekend.
Jelly Slice |
Ingredients |
200g (7oz) packet plain, sweet biscuits
125g (4.4oz) unsalted butter, melted 2½ tsp powdered gelatine ¼ cup (60ml/2fl oz.) water 250g (8.8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature 1 can (approx 400g/14oz) sweetened condensed milk 1/3 cup (80ml/2.7fl oz) lemon juice ½ cup (125ml/4.2fl oz.) cream 1 tsp powdered gelatine 1 packet of jelly crystals (any flavour, I used raspberry) |
Method |
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It was a delicious as it looked.
I’m glad you all liked it!
I’m so making this on saturday! 😀
Yay! I hope it turned out spectacularly for you!
Must make some jelly slice… Dangit, this will ruin me! XD
Haha, jelly slice has a habit of doing that
And the songs haven’t stopped since! I love a refreshingly delicious dessert. Especially one that doesn’t make you feel too guilty, even when you eat a load of it.
They’re still in my head.
Nothing like a man who sings for his food. Mine does the same when he is particularly taken with something I’ve made him – complete with ridiculous, made up lyrics – I love it 😉
That’s awesome! I’m glad the habit is widespread.
This is amazing! I had jelly slice a few years back and just thought about making some for myself!
Gotta love good timing!
Oh wow, that looks great! I remember this from being a kid. Very popular on ‘bring a plate’ days.
I keep hearing that but no one ever bought a plate of it when I was a kid! Sadness.
I personally cannot eat this because i’m a vegetarian, but my mum asked me if i could try making it for her since she used to have it all the time as a kid, and she loved it! Thank you 🙂
Glad to hear she loved it! Is it just the gelatine in the recipe you can’t eat? If so you can sub in agar agar — it works the same as gelatine, but it’s made from plants.
Hey, I was wondering. Can you make this with Custard instead of the cheesecake filling?