Tanghulu Tree
Traditional Chinese fruity candy - tanghulu. You can easily make it at home!
Equipment
- 50 Toothpicks
- 1 saucepan
- 1 Parchment paper
Ingredients
- 1 Carrot
- 1 Apple
- 2 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Water
- 8 Strawberries
- 15 Cherry tomatoes Red, yellow, orange colors
- 10 Green grapes
- 8 Blueberries
- 1 Broccoli
Instructions
- Wash and dry fruits completely*. Once dried, skewer every fruit with a toothpick.
- Add 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water into a saucepan. Boil the syrup over medium heat for about 50 minutes.
- Do an iced water test* (see notes below) to see if the syrup has reached the proper status.
- Once the desired status has reached, turn heat to "low", so that the syrup won't turn hard as we coat the fruits.
- Dip a fruit into the syrup and spin the toothpick gently to cover the fruit completely. Lift the fruit, spin the toothpick gently above the saucepan to allow excess syrup to drip off.
- Put a parchment paper over a baking pan. Place the sugar coated fruit on the parchment paper. Set aside to cool.
- Connect a carrot on the top of an apple with some toothpicks to make a "tree" base.
- Place toothpicks with sugared fruits into the “tree”. Fill in the gaps with broccoli or other decorations.
Video
Notes
- Choice of fruits: Make sure you use fruits with dry surfaces, like cherries, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, and cherry tomatoes... Pre-cut fruits like pineapple chunks, kiwis, or watermelon chunks are not recommended here. The water on their surfaces will gradually melt the crunchy shell, and the shell will fall off from the fruits within hours.
- Iced water test: Dip chopsticks into the syrup, then dip into iced water for 2 seconds. Take the chopsticks out from iced water, taste the syrup on chopsticks tips. If it turns hard and crunchy, the syrup has reached the proper status. If the syrup is still sticky after going through iced water, you need to keep boiling it until it passes the iced water test.