Tanghulu

Hello

안녕하세요

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

Tanghulu is a traditional Chinese street food sweet treat, it was traditionally made with tart Chinese hawthorn berries, but has been changed up to include other fruits like strawberries, grapes, mandarin oranges and kiwi.

I've been wanting to try this snack for quite a while but never come across it when out and about in London's China town. It wasn't until I decided to have a look at recipes that I thought to make them myself.

Let's get making!

Ingredients:

1lb strawberries and grapes

2 cups white sugar

1 cup water

Start off by washing and patting dry your fruit with a paper towel.

Get your fruit ready, remove the green stems from your strawberries and remove grapes from the stems.

Next arrange the fruit onto skewers. I arranged it so there were 1 strawberry and 2 grapes per skewer.

Fill a bowl with cold water and add a few ice cubes to make an ice bath.

Add the sugar and water to a medium-sized pan and bring them to a boil over a medium heat. Do not stir.

The temperature of the sugar syrup has to reach around 300F/150C. This takes around 5-10 minutes. The syrup will start to reduce and become amber in colour.

If you don't have a sugar thermometer, drizzle some syrup into the bowl of water. It should set right away and form brittle crystal threads that break easily.

Once the sugar syrup is ready, remove from the heat. You can prop the pan at an angle, so it's easier to dip the skewers into the pan.

Prepare your workstation: skewered fruit, syrup, ice bath, and wire rack or tray with baking parchment.

Take one of the skewers and quickly dip it into the mixture, making sure all the fruit is coated. Immediately dip into the ice water and lay onto a wire rack. Repeat the steps until all the fruit skewers are done.

Let the skewers rest on the rack for a few minutes

You now have Tanghulu ready to snack on and enjoy.

This takes a little time to make, but it's definitely worth it. I did burn myself a couple of times, but that's to be expected with me, if it's not on the wire rack in the oven, it's pan and my cooking.

I love the hard sugar syrup against the softer fruit. It definitely is the perfect sweet treat.

My only issue was that if they're not eaten quick enough, the sugar syrup begins to dissolve, even in the fridge. That aside, I'd definitely make them again.

If you would like to follow the original recipe, then head over to Tanghulu recipe page on the Alpha Foodie recipe page.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye