French Friday with Dorie: Citrus-Berry Terrine

Whew! What a day, but at least I am just getting this done before midnight. For this week's French Friday with Dorie recipe we were to make a citrus berry terrine using unflavored gelatin and I thought, how hard could this be, right? I have been making Jell-o desserts since I was a kid, so surely this would be a snap. Boy, was I ever wrong!

I bought a pineapple last weekend that had ripened and I wanted to use it in place of the grapefruit in the recipe, so I not only substituted with pineapple chunks, but also used one cup of pineapple juice for the gelatin mixture. I made my terrine and it looked so beautiful, but it never set! I was upset disappointed, but John ate a bowl of it this morning and thought it tasted really good the way it was, but I wanted to know what went wrong and why it hadn't set. I thought perhaps the fruit I had washed possibly hadn't drained enough of the water from the slices and could be the culprit, but then I remembered about the Ps and Qs and after reading them for this recipe I found out that it was the pineapple that was the problem! Lesson Learned: Read the Ps and Qs [I forget to do this!] before making your FFwDorie recipe because you can benefit from the experience and tips of fellow members. While I have used chunks of fresh pineapple in small quantities in Jell-o before, I had never used canned pineapple juice. Apparently, there is an enzyme in pineapple or possibly in canned pineapple that keeps the gelatin from setting. Thank you for sharing that knowledge, Lizzy!

I decided that I wanted to try making the terrine again, so after work today I stopped by the store and picked up some more unflavored gelatin and orange juice. I used the same fruit I had used in the first terrine, minus the pineapple: blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, bite-size pieces of orange segments, and kiwi slices. After about 6 hours in the refrigerator I finally had mostly a success. The kiwi slices looked pretty, but they were a little heavy and didn't jell because I had put them around the sides and top of the terrine.

And you know what the funny thing is? After all that work and time, all of us agreed that the unjelled terrine tasted the best because of the pineapple. The second terrine tasted good, but it was not as sweet and just tasted so much different from the first one. The pineapple juice and chunks made the first terrine tangy sweet and really had the overall best flavor. But, the best part of this experiment for me was that I finally discovered a way to get my big kids to eat their fruit! 

Head on over to French Fridays with Dorie to see the terrines that other group members made this week.