7-up Emerald Isle Fluff

For last Sunday's dessert I made something from the "You're really cooking when you're cooking with seven-up!" cook booklet circa 1957. Lots of unusual ways to use 7-up for cooking such as basting meats and adding it to baked beans...If you dare. There are also ideas for using it in more acceptable ways like desserts, cakes and punches. I decided to try this recipe because it has coconut(and if you read this blog frequently, then you already know my love of coconut!) and for an added bonus..It calls for GREEN food coloring! Love it!

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Recipe:

7-Up Emerald Isle Fluff

An airy dessert with the lively tang of the lemon-lime flavor of 7-up. (yes, it actually uses the word "the" twice like that)

1/2 lb. Marshmallows

1/3 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup 7-up

1 cup coconut

1 cup evaporated milk, chilled until icy

green food coloring

melt marshmallows with 1/3 cup evaporated milk over hot water. Stir to blend. Cool; add 7-up and 1/2 cup coconut; chill until thick. Whip evaporated milk; fold in marshmallow mixture. Tint pale green with food coloring. Pour into wafer crust. Top with 1/2 cup toasted coconut. Chill until set (3 to 4 hours). Serves 9.

Wafer Crust

Combine:

1 1/3 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

1/3 cup melted butter or fortified margarine.

Then press in bottom of 8x8x2 inch pan. Chill thoroughly.

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I would love to say that the dessert went smoothly in the making but that would be a BIG lie. Did you know that coconut is extremely flammable? And did you know that those home fire extinguishers are really really messy? Yeah, well.... So after the fire was put out in toaster oven I had to start making the dessert all over again because the first one had a layer of fire extinguisher funk on it , along with half the kitchen. When I made the second batch of toasted coconut I watched it real close and when it was done it was starting to smoke and again threatening to play a rerun of earlier events. I am never toasting coconut again...Only problem is that there isn't anywhere around here that sells it. I will just have to improvise...Maybe I could fry it! You laugh, but that might be really good! Ok, then the other issue...Evaporated milk doesn't whip! I whipped it for a long time and it did absolutely nothing to the texture. I assumed "whipping it" would make it thick but no. I still poured it in the mixture and just put the whole thing in the freezer.

As far as taste goes..Everyone LOVED it! I should have made two of them because everyone wanted thirds.

There is a recipe for 7-up cake in the booklet also, which is a more popular dessert. It says to make a packaged cake using 7-up as the liquid in the recipe. And that's about it.