

Mix 1/4 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup water together in a saucepan over medium heat cook and stir until sugar is dissolved, 2 to 4 minutes.Combine 3/4 cup hot water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and agar-agar in a saucepan bring to a low boil.

It first became popular in Japan in 2014, and later gained international attention. Raindrop cake is a dessert made of water and agar that is supposed to resemble a raindrop. I started Raindrop Cake as a small side hustle based on a fondness for Japanese desserts. The attention it got took me by complete surprise. In April 2016 I launched Raindrop Cake at Smorgasburg in New York. The raindrop cake, or mizu shingen mochi, is supposedly a variant of rice cake, originally made with pristine water from the Japanese Alps and solidified using granulated sugar, agar (a jelly like substance), and soybean powder. You might be thinking, ‘That’s clearly a lump of Jell-O.’ But not so fast. The dessert is very delicate and is supposed to only hold its form for about 30 minutes. When you bite in, the dessert dissolves in your mouth, like eating rain. The name Raindrop Cake comes from its appearance– which looks like a giant raindrop– as well as the taste. The dessert originated in Yamanashi prefecture, which has a Japanese sweets shop that first sold this dessert. It is a jelly-like dessert made from water and agar powder and it looks just like a giant raindrop. Raindrop cake is actually called “Mizu Shingen Mochi” in Japanese. The delicate cake dissolves in your mouth and is flavored with spring cherry blossoms, syrup and roasted soybean flour. This unique low-calorie dessert looks and tastes like a giant raindrop.

Darren Wong is the creator of the Raindrop Cake that currently is being sold at Smorgasburg.
#Raindrop cake near me how to#
But if you can’t make it to the Big Apple this summer, check out how to make the water bead cake for yourself: How much does a Raindrop Cake cost? * optional – since it’s summer, I think adding a bit of minty flavor to the raindrop cake really helps cool down the heat.Debuting in America this spring, the renamed ‘Raindrop Cake’ will be available from Darren Wong at Brooklyn’s seasonal Smorgasburg food fair beginning this weekend. 1 tsp mint extract (or 2 drops of mint oil)*.

So please enjoy this healthy dessert, it’s like eating air 🙂 Ingredients So instead, I found that a semi-spherical bowl works the best, especially if it’s glass since you can dip the glass bowl in warm water prior to removing the cake and it will slide out easily. Red bean is a very popular ingredient in Japanese and Chinese desserts and you can get the recipe here.Īt first, I tried to use a silicone ice ball maker to put the raindrop cake but the ‘cake’ was way too soft that I couldn’t remove it from the ball. The whole concept is that since the raindrop cake is basically flavorless gelatin, you need to have ‘accessories’ that adds flavor and sweetness. I also substituted the kinako and kuromitsu with chunky red bean paste and heavy cream. Now, if you want to make this completely vegan, then you can use agar. For me, I prefer the gelatin texture over the agar texture so I’m substituting agar with gelatin. So it’s much harder to find agar agar unless you have a Asian market near you or else you can buy it on Amazon. The hardest part about making the raindrop cake is the ratio of gelatin and water. I guess you can call it a dieter’s dessert. So what’s so special about the raindrop cake? It just look amazing with a dome shaped gelatin and very mild flavor. Instead of using rice as the mochi, mineral water and agar was used in its place. Turns out it was originally known as Shingen Mochi (信玄餅) which is made of rice cake with kinako (roasted soy flour) and kuromitsu (black sugar syrup). I have never heard of the raindrop cake until recently even though I worked in Japan in the late 1990’s.
