Lime and Pineapple Ice Jelly with Mini Rock Sugar | A Cold Summer Bowl

Ice jelly is a Sichuan street dessert that travels well. Set it in the morning, keep it cold, and it holds all afternoon. The jelly itself tastes of almost nothing, which is the point. It is a clean, wobbling base for whatever you put on top.

This version uses two sugars for two jobs. Mini rock sugar sweetens the jelly base, cleanly and without colour. Raw cane sugar goes into the pineapple, where its molasses note has something to hold onto.

The sugar

Mini rock sugar, 迷你冰糖, is rock sugar in small crystals. The size matters here. A 600g pot of water needs the sugar gone before the jelly powder goes in, and small crystals dissolve fast without a long boil that would drive off water and change the set.

Raw cane sugar, 原蔗糖, does the opposite job. Unrefined, fine-grained, with a soft molasses aroma, it sweetens the pineapple while the fruit sits in lime juice. White sugar would only make the pineapple sweeter. This gives it depth.

Made with Ship Brand Mini Rock Sugar 迷你冰糖 300g and Ship Brand Raw Cane Sugar 原蔗糖. Shop mini rock sugar. Shop raw cane sugar.

Recipe

Serves: 2 bowls Prep: 20 minutes, plus marinating Cook: 10 minutes Total: about 30 minutes active, plus marinating and setting time

Ingredients

Ice jelly

• 600g water
• 40g Ship Brand Mini Rock Sugar 迷你冰糖
• 1 slice ginger
• 30g white jelly powder (白凉粉)

Pineapple

• 1 pineapple, cut into chunks
• 1 lime
• 30g Ship Brand Raw Cane Sugar 原蔗糖
• 2g salt

To serve

• 20g popping boba

Directions

1. Bring the 600g water to a simmer and dissolve the 40g mini rock sugar completely.
2. Add the ginger slice, which takes the raw edge off the jelly powder, then whisk in the 30g white jelly powder until smooth.
3. Pour into a mould and leave to cool and set naturally. It should be clear and firm enough to hold a cut edge.
4. Cut the pineapple into chunks. Zest the lime lightly, taking only the fragrant outer layer and none of the white pith.
5. Squeeze the lime juice over the pineapple, add the 2g salt and the 30g raw cane sugar, and stir to combine.
6. Seal and leave to marinate until the pineapple has softened and taken on the lime and the sugar.
7. Turn the set jelly out and cut it into cubes.
8. Fill a bowl with the jelly, spoon the marinated pineapple over it, and finish with 20g popping boba.

Notes

• The salt is not there to make the fruit salty. It balances the sharpness of the pineapple and the lime so the sweetness reads clearly.
• Zest only the outer skin of the lime. The white pith underneath is bitter and it will carry through the whole bowl.

To finish

Serve it cold, straight from the fridge, on the sort of afternoon when nothing else appeals. Mini rock sugar is the sugar to reach for whenever you need it dissolved and gone: jellies, syrups, tong sui, and clear soups where any colour would show.

Ship Brand (帆船牌) is the retail line of Yuen Tung Sugar Factory Industrial Company Limited. Sugar refined in Hong Kong since 1987. Shop the collection.