Ok maybe not so great, but experiment none-the-less! As I was working on my last recipe, Lilac Coconut Milk Pudding, I noticed that there were a lot of different gelatin amounts out there for puddings and jellies. This made me curious for future pudding endeavors: how much gelatin results in what pudding texture, firmness, etc?

Experiment:
I made a full recipe of the coconut milk pudding without the gelatin. I then weighed it out into four equal portions. To each of these portions I added ¼ the amount of gelatin I would use in a full recipe dissolved in ¼ the amount of water in a full recipe (1 tablespoon of water) and let them sit overnight. The four amounts I experimented with were equivalent to 1, 2, 3, and 4 tsp gelatin for a full recipe of liquid (1 and a ½ cups of liquid).

Here are the results in visual form:

One of these things is not like the others (but they all belong…in my belly)!

1 teaspoon of gelatin (to 1 and ½ cups liquid) did not firm up the pudding enough to hold its shape. This might be the more traditional pudding cup type pudding, one that needs a container to hold it and is very soft and silky.

The other three were just variations in firmness, as one would expect (4 tsp – 3 tsp – 2 tsp):

(I have a finger freckle. I never really noticed that before!!!)

4 teaspoons (to 1 and ½ cups liquid) was the firmest. This is the one I would pick if I wanted a pudding that really held its shape like pudding blocks at dim sum! When I pushed on it there was a lot of resistance and it was difficult to split with my finger and returned to normal shape after pressure.

3 teaspoons (to 1 and ½ cups liquid) still held its shape pretty well though it was slightly less firm. You could still cut it into shapes, though not as easily. When I pushed down on it I could split it with my finger with much less resistance. It mostly returned to normal shape after the pressure.

2 teaspoons (to 1 and ½ cups liquid) still held its shape, kind of. It started to slide off the spoon as I was taking pictures. When I pushed down on it softly the pudding had almost no resistance and just squished in two (this picture does a bad job showing it because I didn’t want to push too hard on it. I should have just squished it). It did not return to its former shape at all. I would not serve out of a container.

Conclusion:
Choose your own adventure! Pick the pudding firmness you desire for your recipe goal.

When making the Lilac Coconut Milk Pudding I would use 2-4 teaspoons. 1 teaspoon is too soft to cleanly hold up the lilac jelly top. For the lilac jelly I would use the 3-4 teaspoon value (1-1 and 1/3 teaspoon to the 1/2 cup of liquid) because you want to hold the flowers firmly.

The image above is the power of 4 teaspoons. Look at that pretty, layered dessert. It even held up in the fridge for a few hours (before I gave in and ate it) with no drooping or loss of shape. You might be able to do that with 3 teaspoons, but nothing less than that.

I hope this experiment is helpful for all your future gelatin pudding recipes! I know it will be for me. What gelatin puddings would you make with the different teaspoon amounts?

Notes:
1 teaspoon of gelatin is about 2.5 grams.
1 and a ½ cups of liquid is about 360 grams.

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