Hi!

My son requested a jello cake for his birthday. (fancy, huh!) I want to make it ahead of time, and then just frost it shortly before the party. I usually frost with whipped cream or cool whip, but both of those tend to get soggy quickly. (I even tried to stabilize with a tiny bit of gelatine last week. Maybe I need more gelatine)

I am putting a beaker made of rice crispy treats and frosting on top of this and then gelatine bubbles around it. Those should be very quick and easy to place, and I imagine they wont move around much. I will do that right before so they dont melt. Also, planning on having dry ice fog coming out of the "beaker".

Anyway, any thoughts? Dream whip? Try to stabilize the cream? Coolwhip?

Oh, I have never ever tried dream whip. Is it good? I have a friend who says it is.

I've used Dream Whip and it works. It also tastes very good. Because I live in a very hot and humid climate, I always stabilize my whipped cream, no matter what I use (Bettercreme, Dream Whip, etc.), except for Cool Whip and the pre-whipped  Bettercreme, which come already pretty much stabilized. For stabilizing, I usually add about a tablespoon of gelatin (dissolved and bloomed in 2-3 tablespoons of water and then melted in the microwave) to every pint (2 cups) of cream, measured before beating. I drizzle it in once the cream is full whipped. At least where I live, you have to refrigerate it anyway once it's made and used. After the gelatin gels, you can leave it out for a while, but you should put it back the leftovers back in the fridge after they're served, more because cream is perishable than because you want it to keep holding its shape. Does that help any?

Yes, it does. It is hot here too. (arizona) I planned on keeping it in the fridge, but I had hoped to take it out, put the dream whip or whipping cream on, then put it back in the fridge- for maybe two hours. Then sing happy birthday etc. I just want it to stay whipped for those two hours....

It will be a fluffy looking cake, but thats okay, right?

No problem at all for that amount of time. Once you ice it and put it back in the fridge, the stabilized cream will set and hold its shape (for days, even, but I'm sure it would go bad long before that!).

okay... went and bought the dream whip. Actually, I bought the store brand.... thought I would try it in advance though since store brands are only USUALLY okay.  :)

I'm sure your cake will be a masterpiece, and of course your son will love it because it's just what he wanted. If you haven't made gelatin bubbles before, good luck with them. Once you get the hang of them, they're easy, but I found them very difficult to master (it might have just been me, of course!). My best advice for them is to anchor the balloons  to toothpicks with duct tape before dipping them and then sticking the toothpicks in styrofoam (spaced pretty far apart) to dry. They're well worth the effort, though.