Raindrop Cake Recipe (Using Bingfen Powder)

Although I've made a version of raindrop cake before, I can sadly no longer find the gelling agent I used last time in the UK any more. Thankfully I found an alternative.

Unfortunately, the kind of agar used in Japan to make raindrop cake (also known as mizu shingen mochi), still isn't available in the UK. It's known as 'cool' agar, which is made with slightly different gelling agents than the agar we can find here, which sets more firmly and with a cloudy look.

Instead, I was experimenting with using bingfen powder (which is used to make the Chinese jelly dessert, bingfen, and is also vegetarian/vegan), with some bingfen powder my husband had bought from China. But unfortunately it wasn't available in the UK for the longest time, so I held off on posting the recipe as most people from the UK / the west wouldn't be able to follow it.

But in the last year or so, I've seen a particular brand of bingfen powder pop up on Asian supermarket shelves in the UK. The brand's sold as KYK Konjac Powder, or 康雅酷 冰粉粉 kāng yǎkù bīngfěn fěn if you're reading the Chinese name. It took me a long time to develop my raindrop cake recipe using it because a) bingfen powder is usually used to gel a large quantity of water rather than a couple of spheres and b) this new brand turned out to need twice the amount that my usual brand (阿依喜冰粉粉 Āyīxǐ bīngfěn fěn) needs. And of course, I didn't know about b) until I started experimenting.

I ate lots and lots and lots of raindrop cakes to get to the perfect setting point for this recipe. I've included the quantities needed for both types, but if you're not in China, you're most likely to find the KYK one.

Rather than make an unusual one like last time, I went back to basics this time, and served my raindrop cake plain with homemade brown sugar syrup and a little kinako (roasted soy bean flour).

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes two raindrop cakes.)

Ingredients for Raindrop Cake:

8g KYK Konjac Powder bingfen powder (or 4g Ayixi bingfen powder)
300ml water

Ingredients for Brown Sugar Syrup:

150g dark muscovado sugar (or soft dark brown sugar)
100ml water

Method:

1. Put the bingfen powder in a small saucepan and stir in the water.

2. Bring to a boil, and boil for a minute or two, stirring continuously.

3. Pour evenly between two ice sphere moulds (I used Tovolo moulds), leave to cool completely, and pop in the fridge to chill overnight.

4. To make the brown sugar syrup, simply dissolve the sugar in the water over a medium heat, then bring to a boil and boil for three minutes. Leave to cool completely before using.

5. To serve the raindrop cakes, simply turn them out onto a serving plate each, and serve with a drizzle of brown sugar syrup and a small spoonful of kinako. Eat immediately after unmoulding or it'll start to melt.

Enjoy, and have fun.