Ok, time for a poll, does anyone remember the “Jello 1-2-3” dessert from Kraft? It was this great Jello dessert that was out in the 80s and early 90s that you would mix in a blender and then pour into glasses and it would separate into three distinct layers, a regular Jello bottom, a mousse-like middle, and a lighter frothy mousse top. It was SO GOOD! My mom used to make it in the dark blue Pfaltzcraff wine glasses she had (which I think was the only time we ever really used the wine glasses until a few years ago). They had strawberry and orange flavors and strawberry was by far my favorite. One day in the mid-90s my mom came home without the coveted Jello 1-2-3 saying she couldn’t find it anywhere at the grocery store and summertime desserts haven’t been the same since…until now!
While browsing a grocery store in northeast Pennsylvania my mom came across, not true Jello 1-2-3 unfortunately, but a pretty close approximation…Trio Treat. When my mom called to tell me she had found this three layered gelatin dessert I told her to buy a few so I could try it out (and prove to everyone here that it, or something like it, really does exist), and in true mom fashion she does not buy one, or even one of each flavor, but since I reminded her strawberry was my favorite flavor of Jello she bought nine boxes of it, seven strawberry, one orange and one lime (to make sure we had all flavors represented).
So last night I decided to try out this Treat to see how it stacked up, of course I don’t think of this until 9pm and the dessert needs to set for 3 hours minimum, so I made it last night and tried it tonight. I had a few blender issues so I don’t think I got quite enough frothy-ness in to really separate all three layers properly but the result was pretty tasty. It wasn’t quite the same consistency that I remember (but I may attribute that to faulty blending on my part), and the strawberry flavor was a bit different (maybe Jello has a patent on that or something) but it was still good and definitely worth making again (perhaps with a more cooperative blender).
Being the photo dork I am I decided to document my recent tri-layer gelatin dessert attempt, here are the highlights (all the pics are on flickr)
digging in
frothy top layer
first bite
all gone
Amongst my friends I’m the only one who has heard of or remembers this wonderful dessert, but I am not alone, the internet remembers everything, and there is even a petition to Kraft to bring Jello 1-2-3 back to store shelves, here’s hoping it succeeds.
OK, so I don’t remember this dessert, but had seen the pictures on your Flickr and it does look tasty! Maybe it was a regional thing? I don’t know. I spent my elementary school years in New Jersey, but that may have been before they came out with this?
Apparently it was available until 1996, maybe it was just in the mid-atlantic though. I’ll have to poll some of my college friends who grew up in Jersey to see if they remember it 🙂
Oh I definitely remember this dessert. I happened on this post because I was looking for anything that would tell me they still made it. LOL! I found some time ago a recipe to make it from scratch, so that’s where I am headed next. LOVE this stuff
Like Brenda, I happened on this site because I was looking to see if it was still made and how I could purchase some. I suppose there are not enough of us to convince Jell-O to bring it back – but it was SO good. I miss it.