rainbow jello [recipe]

Rainbow Jello (or 12-layer Jello) is a favorite around our house. My mom was famous for this jello. We only make it for special occasions like Thanksgiving, family parties, or when someone requests it. However, I think it would also be perfect for a summer party, color party, or rainbow party. I'm always in charge of making it when we have Thanksgiving dinner with my husband's family. So, I thought I would share the recipe since Thanksgiving is this week. I can't believe it's already here.

I'll tell you up front, this is not a quick recipe to make. It will be worth every minute you spend, but you'll want to plan on it taking a good chunk of the day to make. It takes a few hours because you have to wait for each layer to set up before adding the next one. The good news is that you can do other things while you are waiting for the layers to set up.

Rainbow Jello
3 oz box of jello in the following flavors: lemon, lime, orange, cherry or raspberry, blueberry, and grape.
1 cup boiling water for each flavor
2 cups sour cream
12 Tbsp cold water
whipped cream or cool whip topping

 Spray 9x13 pan and set aside. To make, just do one layer at a time. Start with lemon. Boil 1 cup water and add it to the lemon jello powder. Stir will.  Then, divide that in half. To one half, add 2 Tbsp. cold water. To the other half, add 1/3 cup sour cream and mix. Pour the lemon with cold water into the pan. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes. Then pour the lemon jello with sour cream onto the first lemon layer.*Then, you will just repeat for all the layers. You can do them in any order, but I prefer lemon, lime, orange, red, blue, and grape.

To recap:       1st layer: lemon jello with water; refrigerate 20 minutes
                     2nd layer: lemon jello with sour cream; refrigerate 20 minutes
                     3rd layer: lime jello with water; refrigerate 20 minutes
                     4th layer: lime jello with sour cream; refrigerate 20 minutes
                     Repeat for all layers.

Right before serving, top with cool whip or whipped cream.
*Make sure the jello you are adding is cool so that it won't melt the previous layer. To speed up the process, you can make two flavors at a time and let the other one cool while the first one is setting up.

Serve this at your Thanksgiving dinner and I promise it will be a hit!