Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Jell-O® Shots
Pineapple upside-down cake? Yum. Pineapple upside-down cake shots? Even better. Now here’s a pineapple upside-down recipe to really flip for: pineapple upside-down cake jello shots. Don’t mess around with all of those tiny plastic cups; you can make these easy jello shots right in a mini muffin pan.
And the cherry on top is, of course, an actual maraschino cherry suspended right in the middle of the jello. Your guests will have fun picking these up by the stem and popping them in their mouths — and before you know it, everyone’s going to be gettin’ jiggly with it.
The red bottom layer is flavored with cherry grenadine, and the yellow top layer is pineapple juice and vanilla vodka–when you mix the two, they really taste just like cake. (But if you don’t like your jello shots that sweet, feel free to make these with plain vodka.)
Pineapple Upside Down Cake Jell-O® Shots
Makes 24 shots
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
one jar maraschino cherries
1⅓ cups canned pineapple juice
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar, or to taste (optional, for sweeter jello shots)
2 Tablespoons (or 2 envelopes) unflavored powdered gelatin
½ – ¾ cup vanilla flavored vodka or plain vodka
1½ tablespoons grenadine
Equipment
2 mini muffin tins
non-stick cooking spray (without strong flavor)
Directions
Use a knife to cut a tiny bit off of the very bottom off of each maraschino cherry so that it will sit upright. Spray the mini muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray. Place 1 trimmed cherry in each cup of the mini muffin tins.
Pour the pineapple juice into a small saucepan. (If you want sweeter jello shots, you can whisk in the granulated sugar at this point.) Whisk the powdered gelatin into the juice mixture little by little and let it sit for 5 minutes, or until the gelatin has softened.
Heat the pan over medium heat and whisk until the sugar (if using) and gelatin are completely dissolved, about 2 to 3 minutes. Do not let the mixture boil or it may prevent the gelatin from setting properly.
Remove the pan from heat and stir in the vodka.
Transfer half of the pineapple juice mixture to a separate container and stir in the grenadine.
Add 2 teaspoons of the grenadine mixture to each cup of the mini muffin tins. Carefully transfer the tins to the refrigerator and chill them until the gelatin has set, about 20 minutes.
Remove the muffin tins with the set grenadine mixture from the fridge and add 2 teaspoons of the pineapple juice mixture to each cup (make sure that the pineapple juice mixture is not too hot, or it else it will start to melt the grenadine layer). Carefully transfer the muffin tins back to the refrigerator and chill them until the gelatin has set, about 20 minutes.
Take the jello shots out of the muffin tins and serve them immediately. If you want to serve them at a later time, transfer the finished jello shots to a sealed container or cover the muffin pan with plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge until you’re ready to serve them.
Get jiggly with it at your next party and bring out these stacked pineapple upside-down cake jello shots. (No plastic cups -- these are made in a muffin tin!)TipHero
Tips
Jello can be tricky: if after chilling for over 1 hour the grenadine jello layer has still not set completely, it’s not going to. But if this happens, you can try hydrating another 2 envelopes of gelatin — or less if the gelatin in the muffin tins has partially set — in a little of the cold pineapple juice mixture and repeat the heating, filling, and setting process.
If you have trouble getting the jello shots out of the muffin tins, run some hot water on the bottom of the muffin pans for a few second, and use a small offset spatula or a toothpick around the edge of each muffin cup to help loosen them.