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Crunchy, sweet, and fruity – This homemade tanghulu recipe uses only 3 key ingredients. Treat your taste buds to Chinese street food with tangulu made from scratch.
This snack is easy to prepare and affordable. Enjoy a strawberry candy or replace it with any fruit you like!
- What Is Tanghulu?
- The Main Ingredients Of Tanghulu
- Is Tanghulu Healthy?
- The Best Way To Store Tanghulu
- Cooking Tips And Suggestions For Making Tanghulu
- Tools And Ingredients To Make Tanghulu
- A Step-by-Step Guide To Making Homemade Tanghulu
What Is Tanghulu?
Tanghulu or Bingtanghulu (Chinese Candied Fruit) dates back to the Song Dynasty in the Guanzhong region. It is a candied fruit coated with hardened sugar glaze, making it crunchy in every bite. The fruit candy is prepared on wooden skewers, a typical Chinese street food serving style.
Using strawberries as the fruit base is common. Today, you can find different kinds of tanghulu versions, from candied grapes to blueberries.
Tanghulu takes its natural flavors from the fruit base with a bit of sugary sweetness with the hardened sugar coating.
Have tanghulu as a snack or a sweet dessert after a meal. It also pairs well with Winter Melon Tea or Boba Milk Tea.
The Main Ingredients Of Tanghulu
It’s easy to make tanghulu at home since you only need 3 readily available ingredients in grocery stores or supermarkets.
Here’s what you’ll need to make this recipe:
- Your choice of fruit: You can use any fruit you like to coat it with sugary syrup. Strawberries are popularly used for this recipe for their vibrant red colors that make the overall presentation look nicer. Moreover, the combination of the sweet and slightly sour taste of strawberries complements well with the sweetness of the sugar coating. Aside from strawberries, go for hawthorn, grapes, cherries, apples, blueberries, pineapples, and kiwi. Basically, any fruit will work as long as the sugar coats the entire fruit and hardens.
Use any fruit you like for Tanghulu
- Sugar: For a clear glaze, use white sugar. The sugar is cooked on high heat with water to create the syrup coating for the fruit. If you don’t have white sugar, you can also use light or dark brown sugar.
- Water: As mentioned, you’ll need water to create the sugar coating. The water and sugar are cooked on high heat until the sugar melts and becomes sticky. I recommend using fresh drinking water since you’ll be eating the hardened sugar with this water.
Is Tanghulu Healthy?
Tanghulu is a sweet treat loved for the fruit’s nutritional content. Most fruits are generally low in fat and calories and are rich in vitamins and fiber. Fruits are excellent sources of potassium, carbohydrates, calcium, iron, and vitamins A and C.
In fact, consuming at least two to four servings of fruits in a day is recommended.
So what can make tanghulu unhealthy? Well, it’s just the added sugar to it, especially with white granulated sugar.
White sugar is refined sugar that is mostly carbohydrates. Excessive consumption of refined sugar is considered harmful to your health, increasing your risk for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Thus, make sure to eat tanghulu in healthy amounts.
The Best Way To Store Tanghulu
Have the freshest and crunchiest tanghulu by munching on it as soon as possible. However, having leftovers is unavoidable. Not to worry, you can keep tanghulu in the refrigerator and preserve its yummy candy shell.
Store it in an airtight container with parchment paper lined on a single layer and not stacked since you want to avoid losing the hardened sugar coating. You can keep it in the fridge for up to three days. However, the shelf life may vary depending on the type of fruit and how fresh they are.
Keep in mind some fruits spoil faster than others. Moreover, the sugar coating may absorb the juices and water from the fruit, which can make it soft in the long run. Thus, I highly recommend eating tanghulu within the day after making it.
Moreover, keep it away from high humidity. Exposure to heat can cause the sugar to melt and lose the crunchy coating. It should be stored in a cool place if you plan to leave it out of the fridge.
Cooking Tips And Suggestions For Making Tanghulu
The recipe is fairly straightforward. You just cook the sugar syrup and dip the fruit into the syrup to coat it. However, the tricky part is making sure the sugar is ready for dipping. Otherwise, the syrup will not harden on the fruit.
So before proceeding with the recipe, read my cooking tips and suggestions for making tanghulu the best way possible.
- Use chopsticks to check if the syrup is ready: The trick to knowing if the sugar syrup is ready for dipping is using chopsticks. Once the mixture boils and becomes sticky, dip the chopsticks into the syrup and immediately immerse it in cold water. If the syrup hardens and sticks to the chopsticks, then it is ready for dipping with the fruit.
- Use a spoon to check if the syrup is ready: Aside from chopsticks, you can also use a spoon. Dip the spoon into ice-cold water and then into the hot syrup. It should harden immediately, indicating the syrup is hot enough for dipping.
- Use a thermometer to measure if the syrup is hot enough: You can check the temperature of the sugar and water mixture using a thermometer. It should be 150ºC or 300°F to ensure that the syrup is ready and will harden.
- Pour some syrup into a bowl of ice water: You don’t need chopsticks, a spoon, or a thermometer to know if the syrup is hot enough for coating. Simply pour a bit of syrup into a bowl of water and ice. The syrup should form crystal threads and harden. However, if the syrup bends and drips, it means it is not yet hot enough for coating.
- The fruit should not be too wet: Even if the syrup is ready or has reached 300°F, it will still not harden if the fruit is too wet. Make sure that the fruits are dry before coating them with the syrup.
- Use 2 parts sugar and 1 part water: In this recipe, we use 200g sugar and 100g water. If you wish to lessen or double the amount, remember the ratio of 2:1 for sugar and water.
Tools And Ingredients To Make Tanghulu
After reading my tips and suggestions, you are now ready to make homemade tanghulu. Gather these everyday kitchen tools, such as a pot for boiling and a measuring cup or weighing scale to measure the ingredients. Grab some of your favorite fruits from the supermarket and get a pack of wooden skewers.
Kitchen Tools
- Pot for boiling
- Chopsticks, spoon, or thermometer to check the syrup readiness
- Bamboo skewers for the fruits
- Measuring cup or kitchen scale to measure the ingredients
- Tray lined with parchment paper
Ingredients
- Fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi (It’s up to you how many fruits you want to use.)
- 200g white sugar
- 100g water
A Step-by-Step Guide To Making Homemade Tanghulu
Wash and clean the fruits thoroughly. Make sure there is no dirt or residue left on the skin. Then, pat them dry. Ensure they are completely dry before dipping into the syrup. Get your skewers and start skewering your favorite fruits.
In a cooking pot, add 200g of sugar and 100g of water.
Cook the sugar and water on high heat and bring to a boil.
Once it boils and becomes sticky, turn the heat to low. Test the syrup if it is ready for coating using any of the following techniques mentioned in the Cooking Tips And Suggestions.
- Dip the chopstick into the syrup and immediately immerse it in cold water. The syrup on the chopsticks should harden immediately. Here is the method I used.
- Dip the spoon into ice-cold water and then into the hot syrup. The syrup should harden on the spoon as well.
- Check the temperature of the sugar and water mixture using a thermometer. It should be 150ºC or 300°F.
- Pour a bit of syrup into a bowl of water and ice. The syrup should form crystal threads and harden.
When the syrup is ready for coating, dip the fruit skewer into the syrup and coat all sides of the fruits.
Let it cool and harden on a tray lined with parchment paper. It should harden almost immediately or about 5 minutes.
Enjoy tanghulu while it is crunchy and juicy!
FAQ
how do we know when the sugar and water mixture is ready to put the fruit in when we don’t have a thermometer?
To achieve the perfect crunch, ensure the syrup reaches 300°F (150°C), but not higher than 338°F (170°C), which is the hard-crack stage. It is a little hard to control.
So the simplest way is to observe the color of the syrup. When you notice a slight pale yellow color appearing in the syrup, it means it’s ready, and you can remove the pot from the heat. If you’re still unsure, you can dip a chopstick into the syrup, quickly cool it in water for a few seconds, and then bite down on it with your teeth. If it feels crispy and doesn’t stick to your teeth, then it’s done just right.
3-Ingredient Homemade Tanghulu Recipe
Equipment
- Pot for boiling
- Chopsticks, spoon, or thermometer to check the syrup readiness
Ingredients
- Fruits such as strawberries blueberries, and kiwi (It’s up to you how many fruits you want to use.)
- 200 g white sugar
- 100 g water
Instructions
- Wash and clean the fruits thoroughly. Make sure there is no dirt or residue left on the skin.
- Then, pat them dry. Ensure they are completely dry before dipping into the syrup.
- Get your skewers and start skewering your favorite fruits.
- In a cooking pot, add 200g of sugar and 100g of water.
- Cook the sugar and water on high heat and bring to a boil.
- Once it boils and becomes sticky, turn the heat to low.
- Test the syrup if it is ready for coating using any of the following techniques mentioned in the Cooking Tips And Suggestions.a.Dip the chopstick into the syrup and immediately immerse it in cold water. The syrup on the chopsticks should harden immediately.b.Dip the spoon into ice-cold water and then into the hot syrup. The syrup should harden on the spoon as well.c.Check the temperature of the sugar and water mixture using a thermometer. It should be 150ºC or 300°F.d.Pour a bit of syrup into a bowl of water and ice. The syrup should form crystal threads and harden.
- When the syrup is ready for coating, dip the fruit skewer into the syrup and coat all sides of the fruits.
- Let it cool and harden on a tray lined with parchment paper. It should harden almost immediately or about 5 minutes.
- Enjoy tanghulu while it is crunchy and juicy!
