🍧 Cendol
Cendol is a chilled Southeast Asian dessert of short green pandan jelly strands served over shaved ice with coconut milk, dark palm sugar syrup and soft red beans. It is sweet, creamy and icy, with the fragrant pandan, the caramel-like palm sugar and the rich coconut milk mixing as the ice melts. It is sold by street vendors and eaten with a spoon on hot days.
Diets
Allergens
None of the 14 major allergens in a typical recipe.
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 100 g rice starch and 2 tbsp tapioca starch
- 400 ml water blended with a handful of pandan leaves, strained
- 400 ml coconut milk, pinch of salt
- 150 g palm sugar
- 100 ml water for the syrup
- 200 g cooked sweetened red beans
- Shaved ice
Method
- Whisk the rice starch, tapioca starch and pandan water in a pan and cook, stirring, until thick and glossy.
- Press the hot batter through a cendol press or colander with large holes into a bowl of iced water; drain the green jelly strands.
- Melt the palm sugar in the water and simmer for 5 minutes into a syrup; cool. Stir the salt into the coconut milk.
- Put the jelly and red beans in bowls, top with shaved ice, then pour over the coconut milk and palm sugar syrup.
How to make it lighter
- Palm sugar syrup is the main source of sugar — 1 tbsp less per bowl saves about 50 kcal.
- Use light coconut milk or dilute it with water.
- Ask for more ice and jelly and less syrup when ordering from a stall.
History
Cendol is eaten across Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and neighbouring countries, and several of them claim it as their own. The dish is sometimes linked to Java, where similar rice jelly drinks are known as dawet, but its exact origin is uncertain.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →