Jello Ribbon Salad

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
5 small packages of gelatin - I use strawberry, orange, lemon, lime and berry blue for a rainbow salad but you can do all the same color or alternate with two colors - whatever you like
2 cups sour cream
2 cups milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cold water - plus about 5 cups boiling water
2 tsp vanilla

Stir the unflavored gelatin into 1/2 cup cold water to soften. Stir in 2 cups sour cream.

Meanwhile, put 2 cups milk and 1 cup sugar in a saucepan. Heat over medium heat until boiling, stirring occasionally. Stir the hot milk mixture into the sour cream, add 2 tsp vanilla and set aside.
Dissolve first flavor of gelatin in 1 cup boiling water. My first layer was the strawberry.


Pour strawberry gelatin in a 9 x 13 glass casserole. Place in refrigerator until set.




Pour a little more than 1 cup of the sour cream and milk mixture over the strawberry jello it is set. It helps to pour into a spoon placed just above the jello. This allows the mixture to gently spread across the gelatin and not break it up. Place in the refrigerator to set the white layer.


Meanwhile you can dissolve color number 2 (orange for my recipe) in 1 cup boiling water. I usually place this in the refrigerator to chill but you do not want it to set.

Gently pour the second color layer over the white layer. Here I hit the white layer with the backside of the spoon and disturbed it. You can see some of the white floating in the orange. You can also see the red layer through the white - it happens! This won't be visible when the salad is finished and when you cut it into serving pieces, most people won't even notice.

Chill to set the orange layer, then repeat with another white layer (just a little more than a cup).
While the second white layer is chilling, dissolve color number three - the yellow/lemon gelatin.

Gently pour the lemon gelatin over the white layer. This one came out much better and you can't even tell there was a mishap underneath :-)

Chill the yellow layer and repeat another layer of white.
While this third layer of white is chilling, dissolve color #4 (green/lime) in 1 cup boiling water.

After the green sets, add another layer of white using what is left and then the blue gelatin.

And here is the result.

And a side view - it looks very impressive when you cut it in squares and serve one a small salad plate. Or you can just scoop it out with a spoon :-)

One year on July 4th I made this using red and blue gelatin with the white stripes. I layered them blue, white, red, white, blue, white, red, white and instead of putting a solid blue layer on top I poured the last blue layer in a separate pan and when it chilled I used a star cookie cutter to cut out 'jiggler' stars. I place them randomly on the white layer. When we arrived at the picnic, the blue stars had slid around on the white layer - but the white was dyed blue where they had been - it was sort of cute !