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Make this Tanghulu recipe, which is a Chinese candied treat where fresh fruit is coated in melted sugar. You’ll only need three simple ingredients! Tanghulu has a crunchy and delicious texture that everyone will enjoy.
I love making candy. My favorite one to date is definitely this Honeycomb Candy. Candy making definitely has its challenges. And I had a bit of a headache making this tanghulu. I’m including ALL of the tips and tricks that (finally) helped me be successful.
What is Tanghulu
Tanghulu is a traditional Chinese snack. While it has origins in China, it’s also very popular in South Korea and Japan.
It has a crunchy, sugar exterior. And when you bite down on it you’re met with the soft and sweet flavor from the fruit. Most traditionally, hawthorne berries are used but what you’ll most often see is it made with strawberries, grapes and mandarin slices.
Fruits to use for Tanghulu
- Strawberries
- Grapes
- Kiwi
- Mandarin Slices
- Crab Apples
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make Tanghulu
- Granulated sugar. You really want to use white granulated sugar for this. While I love cane sugar for drinks (like my Strawberry Margaritas), for this we really need the processed sugar.
- Fruit. I love using fresh strawberries, mandarins and grapes.
- Water.
For the rest of the ingredients with directions, please see the recipe index card below!
How to Make this Tanghulu Recipe
- Start with getting all of your ingredients together. I like to dry all of my fruit very thoroughly. And then place is on skewers.
- Pour the sugar and water into a pot. And bring it to a simmer. We are cooking this sugar and water mixture for about 15-20 minutes and until it reads 300F on a candy or digital thermometer.
3. Carefully dip the fruit into the hot sugar and immediately dunk it in ice water. This will help harden the candy immediately.
4. Repeat the process until you’ve worked through all your fruit.
5. They exterior will harden as it sits in the cold water. Transfer to a plate or baking sheet and serve immediately. This truly is the best eaten right away.
Recipe Tip
- Prepare everything before you begin. This recipe goes quickly and can become
- Dry off your fruit thoroughly. You want the fruit to be VERY dry because this helps with the melted sugar sticking to the fruit.
- Use a stainless steel pan. I tried this with an enamel-coated pan and it holds onto to too much heat and it makes it difficult.
- Cleaning the pot with the hardened cooked sugar. Add water on top of the hardened sugar. I like to add quite a bit. And place it on the stove. Turn it on medium-low and warm it up. This will soften the hardened sugar and dilute it. Pour it down the drain and if there’s any little bits, repeat the process until the pan is clean.
Recipe FAQs
The melted sugar may not have reached 300F. That is what the hard stage of candy-making is and it needs to reach 300F in order to harden around the fruit.
Phew, I made this a few times and it crystalized one time and I did EVERYTHING right. I did use an emamel-coated pan when this happened, hence why I don’t recommend it. It holds onto way too much heat.
I had an excess of strawberries for this recipe. You can use any extra oranges for my creamsicle cake. And for extra strawberries, definitely use them for the Hailey Bieber Strawberry Glaze Smoothie or my Strawberry Lemonade Sangria.
More Asian-Inspired Recipes
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Tanghulu Recipe
Video
Equipment
- 1 medium stainless-steel pot
- 1 candy or digital thermometer
- 8-10 wooden skewers
- 1 large glass bowl
Ingredients
- 1 pound fruit, (I used a combination of strawberries, mandarin slices and grapes)
- 3 cups granulated white sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water
Instructions
To Prep the Fruit:
- I like to wash all of the fruit by letting it sit in cold water for a few minutes. Drain it and thoroughly pat it dry with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel.
- Add the fruit to skewers. I like to add one to three pieces of fruit per skewer. Anymore and it get tough to dunk it in the melted sugar.
To Make the Melted Sugar:
- In a stainless steel pot, add in the sugar and water. Do not stir it at all. Place it over medium heat and cook for about 15-20 minutes, until it reaches exactly 300F (this is known as the hard ball stage for candy making).
- Immediately dunk the fruit on skewers into the melted sugar and then immediately transfer it into a bowl with ice. Place it on a baking sheet. And repeat with the remaining fruit.
- Eat immediately. As it sits the outer candy tends to soften.
Notes
- Prepare everything before you begin. This recipe goes quickly and can become
- Dry off your fruit thoroughly. You want the fruit to be VERY dry because this helps with the melted sugar sticking to the fruit.
- Use a stainless steel pan. I tried this with an enamel-coated pan and it holds onto to too much heat and it makes it difficult.
- Cleaning the pot with the hardened cooked sugar. Add water on top of the hardened sugar. I like to add quite a bit. And place it on the stove. Turn it on medium-low and warm it up. This will soften the hardened sugar and dilute it. Pour it down the drain and if there’s any little bits, repeat the process until the pan is clean.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
great tasted perfect<3
Good looking recipe 😋 but just to clarify, this is Korean, not Chinese. My coworker was very quick to point this out when I showed her 😆
Its so yum it helped me alot
I love this recipe so much every day and nice and sweet
So glad you loved it, Lara 🙂
My kids made these, overall they were really good and they loved them but we had a lot of leftover sugar, almost half the pot. Is there something to do with the extra sugar?
yum
This was so fun to make! We had a couple pieces of fruit turn out chewy because we were impatient when waiting for it to reach temperature. We wanted to experiment and we learned.
A couple of pieces per person is enough, as the sugar hits quite hard. But it’s so worth it to feel that little crunch and then take in the flavor of the juicy strawberry! I will make this again when we have guests to make it worth the time for prep and clean up.
Thank you!
I have had this in Beijing. Fantastic. And thanks for the recipe.