Recipe for Jonathan's Fizzy Fruit Jelly

***This post is adapted from one I wrote on Facebook dated 29 September 2016. Since I have this blog now, I decided to transfer it here to complement my other recipe entries like my Berry Blast mocktail. Also, the weather has been terribly hot recently so this would make a nice treat.***

I love watching cooking and mixology videos on YouTube for fun, and my favourite channels are Jamie Oliver's Food Tube and Drinks Tube, as well as Mobile Home Gourmet by Dennis Viau. Recently I came across a recipe for Summer Fruit Prosecco Jelly. For those who are unfamiliar, Prosecco is a sparkling Italian fruit wine. Adding it to jelly gives the jelly a nice fizz on the tongue.

I dislike the taste of alcohol, so I wanted to try making a similar jelly with a soft drink instead. Using Jamie's recipe as a base, I experimented with replacing the Prosecco with 7-Up, and discovered that it works just as well. Jamie used gelatin sheets to make his jelly from scratch, but I used Tortally premix, which is readily available in all major supermarkets at an affordable price.

Image from Boon Supermarket

Below is a description of how to make my Easy Non-Alcoholic Fizzy Fruit Jelly.

Ingredients:
One 1.5-litre bottle of 7-Up
2 packets of Tortally lime flavour premix
250ml hot water
250ml cold water
A box of grapes

Serves 8-10 (I used the colourful plastic cups from IKEA. Depending on the volume of your cups,  the number of servings yielded might be slightly different.)

Method:

1. Place the 7-Up and grapes in the coldest part of your refrigerator for at least eight hours. Alternatively, put them in the freezer for about four hours. This makes the ingredients very cold and ensures that the bubbles from the 7-Up will not escape when you add the drink to the jelly mixture later.
2. Boil 250ml of water. Take it off the boil and add it to a bowl. Add both packets of premix and stir until all the granules are dissolved. Add 250ml of cold water from the refrigerator. Stir until the mixture is at room temperature.
3. Portion the mixture equally into serving cups, making sure to leave about a third of the cup free. This should give you eight to ten servings.
4. Take the 7-Up and grapes out of the refrigerator. Add two grapes to each cup. Top up each cup with the 7-Up. Do this as quickly as you can - you want to avoid letting the ingredients warm up or the 7-Up go flat.
5. Give each cup a gentle and brief stir - make two slow rounds in each cup with a spoon - so as to get all the ingredients mixed uniformly together without driving out too many of the bubbles from the 7-Up. Place all the cups in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.
6. Enjoy your jelly!

Possible variations:

• Try out various soft drinks to replace the 7-Up
• Experiment with different base flavours for the jelly mix
• Use other types of fruit

Did you make this dessert? Let me know how it went and what suggestions you have to improve the dish!