Dango Tanghulu

When we combine crunchy tanghulu and chewy dango, we will get “dango tanghulu“: lovely puppy-shape dangos and fresh strawberries coated with a sweet tanghulu coating.

What is dango?

Dango is a traditional Japanese sweet made from rice flour or glutinous rice flour that is typically served on a skewer. The rice flour is mixed with water to form a dough, which is then rolled into small balls and boiled in water. Once the dango is cooked, it is skewered and typically served with a sweet sauce made from soy sauce, sugar, and mirin.

The Hanami Dango, also known as Tricolor Dango, is a popular Japanese springtime dessert, which has even been made into an iPhone emoji!🍡

Use rice flour or glutinous rice flour for making dango?

You can use either rice flour, glutinous rice flour, or a combination of them to make dango.

The texture of rice flour is similar to that of wheat flour, whereas glutinous rice flour produces a chewy, sticky texture suitable for mochis or foods with little structure.

Only using glutinous rice flour would make the dango sticky and hard to chew. Using a combination of regular rice flour and glutinous rice flour can make the Dango to be chewy and bouncy at the same time.

The ratio I suggest is 1 portion of glutinous rice flour: ½ portion of regular rice flour.

Feel free to adjust the ratio, if you prefer chewier dango, add more glutinous rice flour, if you prefer bouncier dango, add more regular rice flour.

My tricolor dango recipe shows you how to make dangos in detailed steps. Note that we are going to skip the powdered sugar in this current dango tanghulu recipe, because we will add a tanghulu coating outside the dangos, which is going to be sweet enough.

What is Tanghulu?

Tanghulu is a traditional Chinese snack made by skewering fruit, usually hawthorn berries or strawberries, and coating them in a crunchy candy shell. The skewered fruit is typically dipped into a sugar syrup, then coated with a layer of hardened sugar, creating a crunchy and sweet outer shell.

In addition to hawthorn berries and strawberries, it’s also common to see tanghulu made from apples, pineapples, grapes, orange segments, and a variety of other fruits.

Some tips for making dango tanghulu

If you’re interested in making dango tanghulu, here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Use fresh fruit: To make the best tanghulu, it’s important to start with fresh and ripe fruit. Avoid using overripe or bruised fruit, as they may not hold up well during the skewering and coating process.

As long as the fruits are not too soggy or watery on the surface, you can use whatever fruits you like to make tanghulu. But if you use watermelon, for example, which is very watery, the sugar coating might fall off from the watermelon chunks quickly as the watermelon releases juice during the coating and cooling process.

2. Dry the fruit and dango: Before skewering the fruit and dango, it’s important to pat them dry with a paper towel or cloth to remove any excess moisture. This will help the sugar syrup adhere better to the fruit and dango.

3. Make the sugar syrup: To make the hard candy coating for the tanghulu, you’ll need to make a sugar syrup by heating sugar and water together for 20 to 30 minutes until it reaches about 150 °C (302°F). Use a candy thermometer to ensure that the temperature is accurate.

If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can still test the tanghulu syrup to see if it has reached the correct temperature by using the cold water method:

1. Fill a small cup with cold water. 
2. Once the sugar syrup has turned slightly yellow, dip the tip of a chopstick or a spoon into the syrup, then soak the tip of the chopstick into the cold water.
3. Wait a few seconds until the syrup has cooled and solidified in the water, then remove it from the water and feel it with your fingers.
4. If the syrup has turned hard that cracks when bitten, the syrup has reached the temperature you want for making tanghulu.
5. If the syrup still feels soft or sticky, continue boiling for another minute or two, then test again. 

It may take a few tries until the syrup reaches the correct temperature, but it’s a reliable way to test your sugar syrup without a thermometer. If the syrup hasn’t reach the desired temperature, your tanghulu’s sugar coating will be very sticky and not crunchy at all.

4. Work quickly: Once the sugar syrup has reach the desired temperature, reduce heat to low, work quickly to dip the skewered dangos into the syrup and coat them evenly. The sugar syrup hardens quickly, so you’ll need to make sure that everything is well prepared before you start coating.

You should have all the dango strawberry skewers ready to be coated by the saucepan. And you should have prepared a parchment-lined baking sheet to hold the sugar coated dango tanghulu.

5. Black food coloring: Ideally use edible charcoal black powder to dye the dango dough, so that the dango’s color is less likely to fade during the cooking process.

I only had gel food coloring at home, which is also fine to use. However, as you could see, the dango puppies’ eyes were faded a little, and the water turned gray after 10 minutes of simmering. 

It is totally fine if you want to skip the food coloring and make some white dango balls. I just used the black food coloring to make my dango balls look like puppies. They tasted just the same as original white dango balls.

If you want, you can also use some natural food colorings, such as freeze dried strawberry powder, minced sakura flower, or matcha powder to make colorful dango balls. See more details in my tricolor dango recipe.

6. Use a heavy-bottomed saucepan & Do not stir the sugar syrup once all the sugar has melted: I recently bought a very cute pan, which I thought would be perfect for making tanghulu syrup. However, every time I tried to make sugar syrup with this time, I ended up getting grainy sugar crystals instead of clear sugar syrup.

Why would this happen? I figured out that my cute new saucepan could be too light weighted.

Using a heavy-bottomed saucepan helps to prevent uneven heating. When the sugar syrup is partially too hot, even if we are using low heat all the time, the syrup will boil rapidly in order to evenly distribute the heat. It would be just like when we the syrup, sugar crystals can form as the sugar molecules stick together and form a solid mass. This can cause the candy coating to become grainy and less smooth, with a less desirable texture and appearance.

Therefore, make sure you use a heavy-bottomed saucepan, be patient and avoid stirring the sugar syrup to prevent crystallization.

With these tips in mind, you should be able to make delicious and beautiful dango tanghulu at home. Enjoy!

EQUIPMENT you will need:

• Measuring cups
• 1 Large mixing bowl
• 1 heavy bottom saucepan
• 5 bamboo sticks

INGREDIENTS List:

• ½ cup rice flour
• 1 cup glutinous rice flour
• ½ cup milk (You may need ½ cup + 2 to 3 tbsps of milk. Can substitute the milk with soy milk, coconut milk, oat milk, or water.)
• ¼ tsp black food coloring
• 10 strawberries
• 2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup water

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Add 1 cup of glutinous rice flour, ½ cup of rice flour, and ½ cup cold milk (can also use soy milk, oat milk, or water) in a large bowl. You can also add ½ cup powdered sugar if you want to skip the tanghulu coating. Since the crunchy sugar coating is sweet enough, I would skip the sugar in my dango dough.

2. Use clean hands to combine all the ingredients and knead them into a smooth dough. (Add 1 to 3 extra tbsps of milk/water if the dough feels too dry or fall apart.)

3. Take a small piece (about ⅛) of the dough, add ¼ tsp of black food coloring to the small dough. Knead the dough until the color is evenly distributed.

4. Divide the white dough into about 11 equal pieces, roll into round balls. Each dango ball should weigh about 30g. Use the black dough to make eyes, ears, and noses, stick them to the white balls to make puppy dangos,

5. Bring a pot of water to a boil, reduce heat to medium low. Simmer the dangos for about 15 minutes or until floating. 

6. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked tricolor dango balls to a large bowl filled with ice water.

7. Add 2 cups of granulated sugar and 1 cup of cold water to a heavy bottom saucepan, turn on medium heat, stir occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring once the sugar has dissolved.

8. Wash and thoroughly dry the strawberries, cut each strawberries vertically into 3 pieces. Insert cooled dango balls and strawberry pieces onto a bamboo skewer in the order of: bottom part of a strawberry, dango, middle part of a strawberry, dango, and top part of a strawberry.

9. Continue boiling the mixture over medium heat for about 20 minutes until the mixture has thickened and turned slightly yellow. The syrup should reach a temperature of about 150 °C (302°F) on a candy thermometer.(*See Note 2 if you don’t have a thermometer.)

10. Holding the skewered strawberries and dangos by the sticks, dip into the syrup, swirling it around to coat it evenly. Hold the dango tanghulu over the saucepan for a few seconds to allow any excess syrup to drip off.

11. Place the dango tanghulu on a parchment-lined baking sheet to cool and harden for about 5-10 minutes.

12. Enjoy immediately once the tanghulu has hardened.

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