Time to get our jelly on!

In support of Breast Cancer Awareness month, House of Annie and 10 other food blogs will be participating in the Royal Selangor 30-day ‘Jellyriffic: Get Your Jelly On’ challenge. I hinted at it last week with our “Say Hello to More Little Friends” post but here are the details:

The Challenge:

• This is a 30-day challenge through the month of October
• Bloggers will devise a new and creative use of the Royal Selangor Jelly Mould daily
• Bloggers will post daily detailing their creative process

• The winning blogger will be judged on how creative their use of the jelly mould is, general aesthetic, recipes and public appeal.

The Prize:

An all-expenses paid trip for two in November to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a 4D3N stay at a 5-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur and the new Olympus PEN Lite E-PL3 camera. As part of the trip, the winner will be expected to participate in a media event held at the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre.

A free trip to KL, AND a new camera? Sweet!

The Participants

Here’s the links to all 10 bloggers that have taken up the challenge. These are food bloggers from around the world with some connection to Malaysia.  Some of them I’ve never read before but some of them are “big name” bloggers such as Billy from A Table For Two, who made it all the way to Week 12 of the 15-week MasterChef Australia Season 3 cooking competition (the guy can cook under pressure, and he has mad photo skillz too!).

Besides having Malaysia in common, we all have at least two more things in common:

1. As far as I can tell, none of us have ever blogged 30 days in a row
2. We’re all passionate about putting out a quality food blog

A third thing we might have in common is a slight touch of insanity for thinking we could pull off 30 quality blog posts (with pictures) in a row. 😉

Royal Selangor also has a pair of its own interns, Rachel and Sophia, blogging alongside at It’s Jellyriffic. They actually have been leading jelly making classes at the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre for many months now. I’d consider them to be the jelly-making experts!

We’re pretty much jelly newbies – the only jelly recipe we’ve done is the Jello Layers post a while back. But we’re willing to make a go of it. Who knows, we might just learn something! 🙂

Let’s Get Started

Since this Jellyriffic Challenge is to highlight Breast Cancer Awareness Month and its related color is pink, we wanted our first jelly creation to be pink. What better fruit than a locally-grown, fuschia-colored dragonfruit to provide that color!

Dragonfruit Agar-Agar Recipe

Prep time: 20 min / Total time: 2 hrs

Ingredients

400 ml water 
5 Tbsp sugar
4 grams agar-agar powder
1 dragonfruit, diced

Method

1. Add sugar and agar-agar powder to water and mix until they are dissolved.

2. Peel and dice half a dragonfruit, reserving the other half for garnish.

3. Mix the diced dragonfruit into the agar-agar liquid so that it begins to color the liquid.

4. Spoon the mixture into the jelly molds and refrigerate for 2 hrs to set.

5. Carefully unmold the set agar-agar into a plate and garnish with the remaining half dragonfruit.

A 2D picture cannot really show how cool this dragonfruit agar-agar really is. Even though most of the diced fruit floated to the top of the mold (thus becoming the base of the cone), there were a few pieces suspended within the jelly itself.  One piece even remained at the point of the cone!

The thing about this agar-agar is, it’s pretty stiff and brittle, so the mouthfeel is different from the softer Jell-O brand gelatins that most Americans are used to.  But it’s good because it holds its shape and doesn’t start to melt at room temperature. 

Play Along

So that’s our first jelly. One down, twenty-nine to go. You’re welcome to play along with us by making your own jellies!

If you purchase one of the jelly moulds from Royal Selangor, proceeds from the sale go towards supporting the Breast Cancer Welfare Association of Malaysia. In addition, Malaysian customers will get a chance to win their own Olympus Pen Lite E-PL3 camera!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for another jelly-riffic creation! It’s gonna be a real treat.

Aloha, Nate

Breast Cancer fact: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in Malaysia. 1 Malaysian woman in 20 will get breast cancer in her lifetime. Visit the Breast Cancer Welfare Association of Malaysia website for more information.