Soy Goodness

I remembered the first time I tried 丁香豆花 was years ago when I was still working near Maxwell Market. It left a deep impression on me as it was really different from our conventional Tau Huay. It was very very light, smooth and really refreshing. Another major difference was the color. 丁香豆花 was yellow in color and looks much like a custard rather than Tau Huay.

Ever since I turned into a SAHM, I couldn't have my favourite dessert as and when I would like to. It was not commonly found in Singapore. The other place I've seen it was in Chomp Chomp food centre (not even sure if it is still there).

I've been asking around to see if anyone has the recipe for my much missed dessert. Not much hope. Most have not even heard of it. I almost already gave up hope until I stumbled upon a 北極熊小小到處逛, a Chinese blog that features the recipe of a Taiwan dessert with the same name. To be honest, I wasn't 100% sure it was the same thing. It looks similar. I just had to try it to confirm.



丁香豆花

Ingredients
Soy beans
water
sugar
7g gelatin
2 egg yolks

Method

1. Soak the soy beans overnight or at least 5 hours. Remove the skin after that and rinse well.
2. Boil the skinless beans in water over low medium heat for half an hour.
3. Using a ratio of one part of beans to 4 parts of water, blend the cooked beans with sugar (according to individual taste) to achieve soy milk. I made my soy milk sweeter as I do not intend to add syrup to my Tau Huay.
4. Sieve the soy milk using a cotton bag.
5. Warm 600ml of soy milk over low heat. Dissolve 7g of gelatin into it. Remove from heat when done.
6. When it is cooled (not hot to touch), add the egg yolks in and mix well using a hand whisk.
7. Chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Serve cold.


I would say my version was close, but not exactly the same. The texture differs slightly from the 丁香豆花 I remembered. Mine was soft and smooth too, but I just have the feeling that it's not there yet. I'm not too sure if it's the gelatin being used in the recipe or my homemade soy milk that is causing the difference. Regardless of my own persistence, the dessert is well received by the kids. I had positive comments from the few of my friends who have tested it too.

Since I had quite a bit of soy milk left (even after consumption), I used part of it to make the Eggless Soy Milk Ice Cream by Rei.



I added the fine soy residue in my cotton bag into the ice cream. It resulted in a strong soy flavour that you won't miss. I also blended in a bag of butterscotch morsels to add on its flavour. The only "complain" I had with my experiment was, the texture was more like a sorbet rather than a creamy ice cream. After contemplating for a few days, I finally added more whipping cream into the sorbet today and gave it another round of whipping in my Vitamix. The poor machine was working so hard to break up the frozen sorbet into milk shake state. As to how it will go, I will only know tomorrow.


After note:
I tasted a little of the "new" ice cream straight from the freezer. It's much better with the additional whipping cream (erm...of course much fatter too!). Not as hard and icy as the first batch and definitely more like ice cream!