Something that is very popular to eat on special occasions is the Asian Jelly cake.
This cake is very well known in the whole of Asia and is mostly called Rau câu.
The Jelly cake originally comes from Vietnam and is one of the most popular desserts there.
Compared to the American type Jelly cakes this one has much more taste.
So some introduction on rau câu:
Rau câu is a Vietnamese jello cake that is made out of agar agar, which is a seaweed by product similar to gelatin. It’s made out of coconut milk, condensed milk and layers of your favorite flavorings like mocha, vanilla, coconut, banana, chocolate and durian.
You can make the cake in any kind of taste you like. The cake will have a structure that is similar to Panna Cotta.
Vietnamese jello cakes are typically very decorative with colorful pictures of flowers and landscapes…making you crave for them even more!
And now the recipe!
For 1 kg jelly cake your ingredients are:
25g Jelly powder (agar agar)
800-1000ml water
200-250g sugar
3-5 pandan leaf
500ml coconut milk
How to prepare the Jelly cake.
First put 800-1000ml water in a bowl and stir it together with the 25g jelly powder.
Then cook until it is boiled, while doing this add 200-250g sugar and last is adding the pandan leaf…
Cook for 5 minutes then take out the pandan leafs and then add in the 500 ml coconut milk until it is boiling again.
After that take it off the fire and let it cool down a bit.
After that you can start making the patterns and moulds one by one and layer by later.
With the Jelly Cake one layer is always with coconut milk and the second layer is without coconut milk.
This means you have to make 2 mixtures.
To make different flavors you can add the ingredients at the coconut milk add in step.
In this way you can create many different Jelly cakes with delicious flavors.
// Pictures and recipe thanks to Mandie Foo, Kluang, Malaysia
