Ais Kacang Recipe (Ice Kacang/Air Batu Campur/ABC Recipe)

The best thing about any ais kacang recipe is you can mix and match different toppings to suit your tastes.

Ais kacang (also spelt 'ice kacang') means 'ice nuts/beans' in Malay. It's also known as air batu campur ('ice mix'), or simply ABC for short.

The essentials of any ais kacang recipe are a base of shaved ice that's been drenched in sweet syrups (usually rose, pandan and gula melaka – palm sugar) and evaporated milk, and then served with sweet red beans and chopped nuts. Over time, it's evolved to include all sort of sweet toppings like jellies and fruits, and often sweet-salty creamed corn too.

Like cendol, ais kacang is a super popular dessert in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, and certainly one of my favourites. It's perfect for cooling off with on a hot day.

This recipe show you how to make the three most popular ais kacang syrups. As for the toppings, as long as evaporated milk is also included, the choice is yours (although I've included some classics for suggestions).

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

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients for Gula Melaka Syrup:

250g gula melaka sugar
200ml water
1 pandan leaf, knotted

Ingredients for Pandan Syrup:

100g caster sugar
100ml water
A few drops of pandan paste

Ingredients for Rose Syrup:

100g caster sugar
100ml water
A few drops of rose essence
A few drops of pink or red food colouring

Other Toppings:

Evaporated milk
Chopped roasted peanuts
Creamed corn
Sweet red beans or sweet kidney beans
Grass jelly
Palm seeds in syrup

Base:

Shaved ice

Method:

1. Start by making your syrups: for the gula melaka, place all the ingredients into a saucepan and heat on a medium heat, stirring until the gula melaka sugar has completely dissolved. Turn up the heat to bring to a boil, and boil for three minutes. Discard the pandan leaf and set the syrup aside to cool completely.

2. Repeat with the pandan syrup followed by the rose syrup: put all the ingredients for each into their own pans, stir on a medium heat until the sugar's dissolved, then bring to a boil and boil for three minutes before leaving to cool completely.

3. Prepare your shaved ice (whether it's by shaved ice machine or powerful blender), pack it firmly but gently into a bowl (not too firmly or else the ice will be too compact to absorb syrups). Then drizzle over your syrups and evaporated milk.

4. Finish by dotting your other toppings around it and serve immediately.

Enjoy, and have fun.