Strawberry Tanghulu

4 min readNov 4, 2022

Tanghulu is a favorite street food among Chinese children and adults. Surprisingly, only a few ingredients are needed to make this tasty treat!

If you’re looking for a delicious and fun snack, why not try making your own tanghulu at home?

Table of Contents

TANGHULU — CHINESE NOSTALGIC STREET FOOD

Legend has it that this dish dates back to Tang Dynasty times. It was originally known as “tang hulu”, meaning “sugar-coated hawthorn fruit”. Today, people of all ages enjoy this dish, and many street food vendors sell it in China. Tanghulu is a delicious and nostalgic treat that is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth! There are many different variations of tanghulu with different fruits depending on region and seasonality.

It’s a popular Chinese street food that consists of candied fruit skewers. By dipping fresh fruit skewers in a hot sugar syrup, once cooled, the sugar hardens into an irresistible crunchy shell.

There are many reasons why tanghulu is so popular. First, the candy is very tasty and sweet. Second, the skewers make it easy to eat on the go. Third, the Hawthorn fruit have many health benefits, such as aiding digestion and helping to reduce cholesterol levels.

Fourth, tanghulu is a fun food to eat. The process of eating the candy off of the skewer is satisfying and enjoyable. Fifth, it’s relatively affordable.

THE SCIENCE OF COOKING SUGAR

It can be difficult to work with sugar syrup if you’ve never made it before. Sometimes it helps to understand the science behind Sugar Work.

Sugar is a soluble carbohydrate that consist of two molecules, glucose, and fructose. When dissolved in water, it forms a sticky solution. This is because the sugar molecules will link to each other and form chains. For the chains to break down by the body, they will need an enzyme called sucrose synthase.

Cooking temperature greatly affects the final consistency of sugar. Sugar dissolves slowly at low temperatures and does not crystallize.The term “inverted sugar” refers to this kind of sugar. Candy makers and bakers use it because it does not crystallize.

At high temperatures, sugar molecules break down and crystallize. It is referred to as “raw sugar” or “crystallized sugar”. The crystals give hard candies a crunchy texture. For making Tanghulu, we’re looking for the temperature range from 149–154°C /300.2–309.2° F.

P.S. If you want to dive even deeper into the science of sugar work? I found this website Food Crumbles has a brilliant and thorough article all about it.

FRUITS FOR TANGHULU

Traditionally, hawthorn is the most popular fruit for Tanghulu in China. This type of fruit is sort of tart and tangy which goes well with the crunchy sweet coating. Don’t worry though if you can’t find hawthorn fruit. You can use candied almost any other fruit to make Tanghulu. My options include Strawberries, Grapes, Tangerine wedges, cherry tomatoes, and Blueberries. Oh, just keep in mind, they have to be firm and fresh.

You can use other fruits as well, the key is little to no moisture. I do not recommend using melons like Watermelon or Cantaloupe or using other wet fruits like Pineapple, Dragon fruit, Mango, or Kiwi.

The key to perfecting your has to do with how dry your fruit is. Make sure to dry off your fruit completely and then again for a safety measure before you dip it into your sugar syrup. Because of this, the wetter fruits will be really hard to perfect. If you want to try them, I’d wait until you’ve given the recipe a try a few times and feel solid in your technique before branching out to the more difficult fruit.

Out of all the options, my favorite fruit to use is strawberries.

The full recipe is at https://joyfuldumplings.com/tanghulu/

If you like to check out the full recipe and instructions.

Strawberry Tanghulu

TANGHULU — CHINESE NOSTALGIC STREET FOOD

THE SCIENCE OF COOKING SUGAR

FRUITS FOR TANGHULU

Written by Shu Chun