The only wobble you want these holidays is jelly

Send a ripple of fun through your festive celebrations by serving one of these jelly desserts.

Source: Adam Liaw

For a fresh, light dessert to top of your festive feast, you can't beat jelly. It's got everything you could ever want in a dessert: it's sweet, colourful and, dare we say it, fun to eat. Plus you can mould it into any shape you can find.

How you've managed to get through the silly season without a stunning jelly signature recipe is anyone's guess. 

Time to fix that!

Upside down Santa

The top layer of jelly is made from a puree of fresh strawberries, the bottom layer from sweetened milk flavoured with vanilla. Source: Petrina Tinslay

Here's a basic jelly recipe to start you off. This wobbly spin on classic strawberries and cream looks a little bit like Santa's taken his hat off.

Lychee love

If lychees aren't your thing, try adding raspberries or blueberries instead. Source: Brett Stevens

Another layered jelly recipe, this one has lychees added to one of the layers. A rose and orange layer and ginger cream layer round out this pretty jelly dessert.

Fruity delight

This is a simple and delicate dessert that highlights the floral flavour of lychees and rose petals. Source: Benito Martin

More lychee love here, with a dessert inspired by a Turkish delight. The silky jelly contains jewel-like pieces of lychee, with a slightly savoury and textural pistachio crumb.

Honey wrap

Burnt honey, fennel and saffron jelly is a flavour sensation your guests will long remember. Source: Adam Liaw

An unusual but impressive dessert, it gets its honeycomb texture from a clever bubble wrap trick. Trust Adam Liaw to be inventive!

Harden up

The golden glow of these gorgeous jellies make them a treat for the eyes as well. Source: Petrina Tinslay

Of course, jelly doesn't have to wobble. Hard jellies like this mango and passionfruit recipe make a delightful gift for dinner party guests.

Artfully impressive

An incredibly impressive cake that will test both your baking and artistic skills. Source: The Sweet Life

A vegan jelly 3D cake from Malaysia is worth mastering. It's a specialist kind of thing, but the jelly art tools and syringes you'll need to pull it off are worth investing in.

Jelly worship

This creamy gelatin dessert is also known as stained glass or Christmas jelly. Source: Adam Liaw

A cathedral cake is a very popular dessert from the Philippines. If you can’t work out where the name comes from, you’re not trying hard enough.

Sweetly helpful

TGelatin in these delicious jellies is great for gut health, and chamomile and manuka honey are brilliant at soothing the digestive system and balancing gut bacteria. Merry Christmas! Source: Jordanna Levin

Your guests (and the kids) will be equally grateful for a box of these chamomile, manuka honey and raspberry jellies. They look so festive and fun, but they're actually wonderful for gut health and so make the perfect sweet after a big meal.

Party passion

This is a simple and fun little dessert treat, perfect for a garden party. Source: Benito Martin

A cute way to serve passionfruit jelly is in the shell. The bright yellow colour indicates that this jelly is full of big passionfruit flavour.

Pretty real

Rose geranium leaves infuse a soft, delicate perfume that subtly winds its way through the raspberries' tartness. Source: Tim Thatcher

The beauty of jelly is how easy it is to make it look breathtaking. Here raspberries and geranium create a delicate dessert that has real wow factor.

Trifle good

An Iced Vovo trifle is all your jelly dreams come true. Source: Bake Australia Great by Katherine Sabbath

The trifle is jelly royalty and fast taking over the Christmas pudding as the Aussie festive dessert of choice. If you haven't had a holiday trifle, start with this Iced Vovo version and keep eating from there.

Jelly memories

These raspberry and coconut wonders evoke nostalgia and delight. Source: Henry Trumble

Both Kylie Kwong and Poh Ling Yeow fondly remember jelly cakes from their childhood celebrations. This is Poh's recipe and you'll find Kylie's mum's recipe here:

Next level

Inside is hidden a coriander jelly which cuts the bulk and sweetness of the meringue pyramid. Source: SBS Food

Black Star Pastry founder Christopher Thé's lime curd pyramid is filled with a coriander jelly. It's certainly not for the beginner cook, but if you want some wow-factor this season, make this.

Hello halo halo

Halo halo is so simple to make – get the kids to help out – and ideal for chilling out on a hot summer's day. Source: Adam Liaw

This classic Filipino treat is really the perfect festive dessert. Layered with sweet beans, shaved ice, jelly, jackfruit and coconut it highlights jelly's fun frivolity. And we all need more of that in our lives.