July 4th color-coordinated jelly

I was reading a Mighty Appetite blog post last week about making color-coordinated sweets for July 4th, and I finally settled on making a jelly, inspired by the Red, White, and Blue Terrine recipe from the blog Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. Believe me, I am no Martha Stewart, but after some busy days at work, I really wanted to do something unique to this patriotic holiday. Since it's almost the end of cherry season, I floated the idea of making a clafoutis, a sophisticated-sounding French dessert I've been dying to try. But I was hoping for a more healthful dessert, so I was thrilled that this jelly is not only vegan, but also fat-free and requires no refined sugar.

I didn't get to buy blueberries that give the original recipe the blue color, and I substituted them with some fleshy, crimson-colored pluots without a hitch. I was surprised that it took so little time to prepare this dessert (or perhaps, I work more quickly now). Dissolving the agar powder, cutting and layering the fruits, pouring the agar mixture over them, then popping the jelly pan into the fridge - all under 30 minutes. When I got back home a couple of hours later, I had a chilled, guilt-free dessert waiting for me.

Chilled July 4th jelly made of summer fruits

The jelly looked gorgeous when you served it upside-down with the sliced strawberries on top. It was sweetened only by fruits (strawberries, bananas, pluots) and the pear juice I used to dissolve the agar, and while I'm all for cutting down on sugar, it turned out to be a bit too light for me. So, you guessed it right, I grabbed more sweets! There happened to be a bazaar run by a Japanese Buddhist temple near where I live, and I went there and bought two imagawayakis, Japanese pastries filled with adzuki bean paste, still warm and fresh off the molding pan. Oh god, I rarely come across imagawayakis ever since I came to the US, and they were as homey and comforting as I've always known them. Too bad that the bazaar was around for a weekend only!

San Mateo Japanese Buddhist Bazaar

Imagawayakis filled with adzuki bean paste