Coffee Jell-o?!

I follow a blog called the Food Librarian and I found this great recipe the other day and just had to share it! I'll go on record that I hate coffee but my husband loves it and I'm for sure going to make this as a treat for him sometime!

Coffee Jello / Coffee Gelatin
1/2 c cold water
2 cups strong coffee, hot.
I used two packages of Starbucks Via. The coffee needs to be strong. This isn't the time for Sanka instant. :) 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
3 packages of Knox unflavored gelatin


1. Place 1/2 c cold water in a bowl.
2. Sprinkle 3 unflavored gelatin packets over the water. Let sit until the gelatin blooms, about 10 minutes.
3. Stir in the hot coffee and mix until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
4. Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk.
5. Pour into glass pan. Thickness of finished jello depends on the size of the pan. I used a 7 x 11 pan but a 9 x 13 pan will give you thinner pieces and an 8 x 8 pan will give you thicker pieces.

Note: The combo of coffee and sweetened condensed milk is inspired by Vietnamese coffee. You can probably adapt this to use coffee or espresso, cream and sugar (be sure to dissolve the sugar in the hot coffee and gelatin). I find that 1 packet of unflavored gelatin will firm up 1 1/2 cups of liquid to finger jello "strength" (according to David Lebovitz's "How to Use Gelatin" post you can mold 2 cups with one envelope - but I feel finger jello needs to be stronger).