Natural DIY Gelatin Dessert Bites for Valentine’s Day

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Gelatin Desserts Jigglers

This gelatin dessert recipe is great for a healthy Valentines Day dessert. They’re easy to make, packed with probiotics, and aid in bone and joint health.

Healthy Gelatin Dessert Bites for Valentine’s Day

Enjoy these on Valentines Day or any day!

February is a special month in our house, we like to call it the month of love. Not only do we celebrate Valentine’s Day, but also our wedding anniversary.

So every February I’m on a mission to find a new heart-shaped food we can enjoy. (A tradition my mom started when I was young.) This usually ends up being a giant homemade heart-shaped pizza, heart-shaped pancakes, cupcakes, or something else very easy to make.

This year I decided to make heart-shaped gelatin dessert snacks, using creamy homemade kefir and red berries for color.

Show your family some real love this month by giving them a treat filled with probiotics and gelatin for their health. It will appeal to the kiddos because it’s still a jiggly, sweet-tasting little snack!

Gelatin Desserts Jigglers 2

Probiotic Gelatin Dessert

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsweetened, natural fruit juice (I had apple juice on hand, but you could use freshly squeezed orange, lemon, or lime)
  • ¾ cup chilled kefir – yogurt can also be used (buy starter cultures and learn how to make kefir here)
  • ¾ cup berries, fresh or frozen (I used frozen strawberries and cranberries)
  • 1-2 tablespoons raw honey (find raw, unfiltered honey here)
  • 2-3 tablespoons unflavored gelatin – from grass-fed cows whenever possible (find it here)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, optional (for extra tang)

Directions:

  1. Add kefir/yogurt, berries, honey, and optional lime juice to a blender and blend until smooth.
  2. Measure out about 1 cup of the blended mixture and add to a medium bowl. (After measuring out your 1 cup, you’ll have a little bit left over that you can drink like a smoothie while you continue to work!) Sprinkle gelatin over creamy berry mixture that’s resting in a bowl, and let stand about 1 minute.
  3. While creamy berry mixture is resting, heat fruit juice to boiling. Slowly add hot juice to creamy berry mixture while stirring continuously with a whisk.
  4. Continue whisking mixture for several minutes to break up any clumps and dissolve gelatin. Pour into an 8×8 or 9×9 pan and refrigerate until set, about 2 hours.
  5. Cut gelatin dessert with a small cookie cutter for fun shapes or cut into squares with a knife. Store in the refrigerator.

Gelatin Desserts Jigglers 3

Things to Love About These Gelatin Bites

  • no refined sugars, only natural sweeteners
  • no artificial colors, only natural colors from berries
  • creamy kefir is packed with probiotics for digestive health and many other benefits
  • gelatin is a great source of collagen, good for bones, joints, hair, skin, nails, and much, much more
  • send them in lunches for a healthy dessert
  • they’re great to have on hand in the fridge for an easy-to-grab snack
  • they look beautiful and they’re fun!

If you have a healthy gelatin dessert idea – share it with the community!

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About Betsy Jabs

Betsy holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Counseling, and for nearly a decade worked as an elementary counselor. In 2011 she left her counseling career to pursue healthy living. She loves using DIY Natural as a way to educate people to depend on themselves to nourish their bodies and live happier healthier lives. Connect with Betsy on Facebookand Twitter.

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Comments

  1. Avatar photoLesle says

    I’m really excited to have found this site. My mom used to give us just baking soda to brush are teeth when we were kids. The clay is a great addition if you have no problems with iron because there is a lot of iron in the clay. I can’t wait to try the kifir and gelatin. Do I have to add honey, I’ve been allergic to a lot that I’ve tried so I gave up. Any suggested substitute? Thanks for everyone’s hard work and great sharing!

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      We’re glad you found us! You can use any sweetener you’re comfortable in place of the honey in this recipe. Pure maple syrup would be a good natural sweetener to replace the honey, but you could also use pure cane sugar.

  2. Avatar photoKris says

    Great recipe and I will be making it with my granddaughter but have a question. Does adding the hot juice kill all the good bacteria and enzymes in the kefir and raw honey?

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Great question Kris! This is the exact reason I recommend “slowly” mixing the hot liquid into the cold. (You can slowly pour the hot liquid onto the side of the bowl, allowing it to drip in, and this will allow it more cooling time before hitting the cold mixture.) You will notice that if you add it slowly enough, it wil not change the overall temp of the mixture, so most of the fragile nutrients should still be intact.

  3. Avatar photoChristine says

    –i forgot to add, I just made it! can’t wait to cut it into hearts to go along with our heart shaped pizzas tomorrow evening!

  4. Avatar photoChristine says

    Thanks for this great idea. I am always looking for ways to incorporate kefir in our diets (none of us care to drink it straight). Usually, I add it to our morning fruit and green smoothie. My kids and husband love jello, but I refuse to buy and make it because of the sugar and chemical colors & flavors. I used to make a natural strawberry gelatin, but had forgotten about it. I may try this with blueberries, next. 🙂 Happy Valentines Day!

  5. Avatar photoJaimie says

    What a great Valentine’s Day snack for little ones. I have a couple questions about the directions – is the gelatin sprinkled over the 1 cup that was reserved in the bowl? Is the hot juice then mixed with that 1 cup first and then the rest that is in the blender? Thanks so much for sharing!

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Yes, gelatin is sprinkled over the 1 cup of kefir/berries/honey that was already blended up and should be reserved in a bowl. I should have mentioned, you will have a little bit extra in the blender that you can drink like a smoothie. 🙂 Then your hot juice is mixed with that 1 cup in the bowl. Does that make sense?

  6. Avatar photoKatie says

    YUM! I have been on a jello kick lately so I can’t wait to try these babies for Valentine’s Day – thanks for sharing!

  7. Avatar photoRuthie says

    I love this recipe combining the kefir with the gelatin to make a really fun dessert for the family 🙂 My husband is wanting me to make jello very often lately, and I have been using the already sweetened, box stuff. I’m very happy to have a healthy alternative to try, along with additional recipes to use with kefir, which I just started making about a week ago. Thanks again, Matt and Betsy, for all the time and energy you put into encouraging the rest of us in healthy living. God bless!

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Okay Ruthie, time to give up the pre-sweetened boxed stuff! 😉 Once you buy some unflavored gelatin the flavor combinations are endless! You’ll love the addition of the kefir too.

  8. Avatar photoLaura says

    Looks like a great recipe. Thanks! Where is a good place to get raw, unfiltered honey? The link above goes to a page that doesn’t seem to have any links for sweeteners.

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Sorry about that Laura! There used to be a good link there…new things will be showing up all the time in the Marketplace. For now, I recommend going to localharvest.org and punching in your zip code to find the best raw honey near you!

  9. Avatar photoJanice says

    This is so awesome! PERFECT timing, PERFECT ingredients for me right now. I just ordered some gelatin about 4 days ago because I was so excited about your grass fed gelatin post and was looking for something fun to do for Valentine’s day and the kefir in it almost made me squeal with joy! LOL I love kefir, it is so fun to make, so yummy, and SO GOOD FOR YOU! Eating healthy is fun, why would anyone want to do anything less?!

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Your enthusiasm is awesome Janice! Isn’t it great that we get so giddy about healthful ingredients??? 😉 These gelatin snacks are really tasty…you’ll be even more excited once you make them!