[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":402},["ShallowReactive",2],{"recipe:singapore-ice-kachang":3,"recipe:country:singapore":183},{"slug":4,"title":5,"nativeName":6,"pronunciation":7,"countrySlug":8,"emoji":9,"summary":10,"intro":11,"story":12,"whyThis":13,"tips":18,"substitutions":25,"variations":42,"serveWith":52,"storage":54,"faq":55,"equipment":71,"baseServings":75,"prepMinutes":76,"cookMinutes":77,"restMinutes":78,"difficulty":79,"course":80,"diet":82,"mainIngredients":86,"ingredients":89,"instructions":136,"nutrition":162,"images":169,"keywords":173,"publishedAt":181,"updatedAt":181,"authorSlug":182},"singapore-ice-kachang","Ice Kachang (Singaporean Shaved Ice with Beans and Syrups)","Ais kacang","ice KAH-chang","singapore","🍧","A mountain of powder-fine shaved ice heaped over sweet red beans, corn, palm seeds and grass jelly, then streaked with rose syrup, palm sugar and evaporated milk.","Ice kachang is the hawker centre answer to a 33-degree afternoon: a bowl loaded first with sweet things — soft red beans, canned sweetcorn, chewy attap palm seeds, cubes of black grass jelly — then buried under a dome of ice shaved fine enough to melt on contact. Over the top go three liquids: fluorescent pink rose syrup, dark smoky palm sugar syrup, and a slow pour of evaporated milk that turns the whole thing into a marbled pink-and-brown mound. You eat it from the outside in with a spoon, and the reward is at the bottom, where the ice has half-melted into the syrups and the beans have gone cold and sweet.","The name gives away the original recipe. Kacang is Malay for bean, and the earliest ais kacang really was just shaved ice and sweetened red beans, sold by street vendors across Malaya from hand-cranked ice-shaving machines mounted on pushcarts. Ice was a luxury of the colonial era, made possible once ice factories reached the region, and a block of it lasted a vendor an afternoon under a wet sack. Everything else on the modern bowl — the corn, the jelly, the syrups, the milk — piled on over the following decades as canned and bottled goods became cheap.\n\nThe fixed components are still recognisably a Malay-Chinese-Indian compromise, which is very Singaporean. Attap chee, the translucent chewy seed of the nipah palm, is a Malay ingredient. Grass jelly, cooked from a mint-family herb into a bitter black set jelly, is Chinese. Rose syrup arrived through Indian and Middle Eastern trade and is the same bottle that colours bandung, the pink rose-and-milk drink. Palm sugar syrup made from gula melaka anchors the whole bowl with something smoky and caramel, and is the flavour most Singaporeans would miss first if it were left out.\n\nWhat separates a good bowl from a bad one is entirely the ice. Hawker machines shave a block into feather-light flakes that compress into a mound and then dissolve the moment they hit your tongue, which is why the dessert eats as cold cream rather than cold gravel. That is genuinely hard to replicate at home — a blender produces crushed ice, closer to a snow cone, which still works but drinks more syrup and melts faster. The workaround in this recipe, freezing a shallow tray and scraping it, gets you closer than crushing does, and nobody at your table will complain about the difference once the gula melaka goes on.",[14,15,16,17],"A home ice method that scrapes rather than crushes, which is far closer to hawker texture than a blender gets.","Real gula melaka syrup made from scratch — the smoky caramel backbone that bottled syrups never supply.","Layering order that keeps the toppings cold and the ice from collapsing into slush before it reaches the table.","Every component can be made days ahead, so assembly takes under two minutes per bowl.",[19,20,21,22,23,24],"Chill the serving bowls in the freezer for an hour. A room-temperature bowl melts the base of the mound before anyone picks up a spoon.","Toppings go in the bottom of the bowl, never on top of the ice — they sink and drag the mound apart.","Drain the corn, beans and attap chee properly. Their packing syrup thins your ice into water within a minute.","Add the evaporated milk last and pour it slowly from the centre out, so it streaks the dome instead of washing the syrups off.","Cook the red beans until they crush easily between two fingers but still hold their skins — undercooked beans are chalky and ruin the texture.","Assemble one bowl at a time and hand it straight to whoever is eating it. This dessert has a working life of about four minutes.",[26,30,34,38],{"original":27,"swap":28,"note":29},"Attap chee (palm seed)","Canned lychee or longan, halved, or nata de coco cubes","You are after a translucent, chewy, mildly sweet bite. Nata de coco is the closest in texture, lychee the closest in sweetness.",{"original":31,"swap":32,"note":33},"Gula melaka (palm sugar)","Dark muscovado sugar simmered with a strip of lime zest","Muscovado brings the molasses depth but not the faint smokiness that comes from palm sap boiled over wood. It is a good 80 percent of the way there.",{"original":35,"swap":36,"note":37},"Rose syrup","4 tbsp sugar syrup mixed with ½ tsp rose water and a drop of beetroot juice for colour","Bottled rose syrup is intensely sweet and artificially pink; the homemade version tastes cleaner but looks paler, which some people mind.",{"original":39,"swap":40,"note":41},"Grass jelly","Cubes of plain agar jelly, or aiyu jelly","Grass jelly has a distinctive faintly bitter, herbal edge that balances all that syrup. Plain agar is neutral, so cut the syrup slightly if you use it.",[43,46,49],{"name":44,"description":45},"Ice kachang with durian","A spoonful of durian flesh or durian purée on top. Divisive by design, and one of the most popular hawker upgrades in Singapore.",{"name":47,"description":48},"Chendol","The close cousin: green pandan rice-flour worms, coconut milk and gula melaka over shaved ice, with no rose syrup and far fewer toppings.",{"name":50,"description":51},"Ais kacang with ice cream","A scoop of sweetcorn or vanilla ice cream planted on the summit, which melts down through the ice and turns the bottom of the bowl into a milkshake.",[53],"Nothing — it is eaten on its own, usually standing in the shade, with long spoons and no ceremony.","Assembled ice kachang cannot be stored for even ten minutes; it is built to order and collapses fast. The components, though, all keep well: cooked red beans last 4 days refrigerated or 2 months frozen, gula melaka syrup keeps a month in a jar in the fridge, and grass jelly and attap chee keep several days once opened, submerged in their own liquid. Make everything ahead and treat assembly as a five-minute job.",[56,59,62,65,68],{"question":57,"answer":58},"What is attap chee?","Attap chee are the seeds of the nipah palm, sold in jars in light syrup across Southeast Asia. They are translucent, pale and chewy with a mild sweetness, somewhere between a lychee and a firm jelly. They are a standard ice kachang topping and turn up in Malay desserts more widely.",{"question":60,"answer":61},"Can I make shaved ice without a machine?","Yes, though the texture will not be identical. Freeze water in a wide, shallow tray and scrape the surface hard with a metal spoon or sturdy fork to lift flakes, refreezing the tray if it starts to soften. A blender or food processor also works but produces coarser crushed ice, which melts faster and soaks up more syrup.",{"question":63,"answer":64},"What is the difference between ice kachang and chendol?","Both are Southeast Asian shaved-ice desserts sweetened with palm sugar, but chendol is built on green pandan-flavoured rice-flour strands with coconut milk and few other additions, while ice kachang piles on beans, corn, jelly and palm seeds and is coloured with rose syrup and evaporated milk. Chendol is creamier and simpler; ice kachang is louder and more layered.",{"question":66,"answer":67},"What kind of beans go in ice kachang?","Sweetened adzuki, the small red beans used across East and Southeast Asia in desserts. They are simmered until soft and cooked with sugar so they taste like a sweet, not a pulse. Canned sweetened red beans from an Asian grocer are a completely normal shortcut and are what many hawker stalls use.",{"question":69,"answer":70},"Why does my ice kachang turn into a puddle so quickly?","Usually warm bowls, wet toppings, or ice that was crushed rather than shaved. Freeze the bowls beforehand, drain every canned component thoroughly, keep the toppings cold until the moment you assemble, and serve it the second the milk goes on. Even a perfect bowl is meant to be eaten within a few minutes.",[72,73,74],"Ice shaver, or a wide shallow freezer tray and a sturdy metal spoon","Small saucepan for the syrup","Deep bowls, chilled in the freezer",4,20,60,120,"easy",[81],"dessert",[83,84,85],"vegetarian","gluten-free","nut-free",[87,88],"corn","condensed-milk",[90,96,99,103,106,110,115,119,121,123,127,131,133],{"qty":91,"unit":92,"name":93,"note":94,"group":95},150,"g","dried adzuki (red) beans","or 400 g canned sweetened red beans, drained","For the red beans",{"qty":97,"unit":92,"name":98,"group":95},80,"sugar",{"qty":100,"unit":101,"name":102,"group":95},1,"pinch","fine salt",{"qty":91,"unit":92,"name":104,"group":105},"gula melaka (palm sugar), chopped","For the palm sugar syrup",{"qty":107,"unit":108,"name":109,"group":105},100,"ml","water",{"qty":111,"unit":112,"name":113,"optional":114,"group":105},2,"piece","pandan leaves, knotted",true,{"ref":87,"qty":116,"unit":92,"name":117,"group":118},200,"sweetcorn kernels, drained","For the toppings",{"qty":91,"unit":92,"name":120,"group":118},"attap chee (palm seeds), drained",{"qty":116,"unit":92,"name":122,"group":118},"grass jelly, in 1 cm cubes",{"qty":111,"unit":124,"name":125,"group":126},"l","water, for shaving into ice","To assemble",{"qty":128,"unit":129,"name":130,"group":126},6,"tbsp","rose syrup",{"qty":91,"unit":108,"name":132,"group":126},"evaporated milk",{"ref":88,"qty":134,"unit":129,"name":135,"optional":114,"group":126},3,"sweetened condensed milk",[137,140,145,149,152,155,159],{"title":138,"text":139},"Freeze the ice","Pour the water into wide, shallow trays no more than 3 cm deep and freeze solid, at least 4 hours. Shallow trays are essential — a deep block is impossible to scrape and too hard for most home shavers.",{"title":141,"text":142,"timerSeconds":143,"tip":144},"Cook the red beans","Soak the dried beans for 4 hours, drain, then simmer in fresh water for about 45 minutes until they crush easily between two fingers but the skins are still intact. Stir in the sugar and salt and cook 10 minutes more until syrupy, then cool completely and refrigerate.",2700,"Add the sugar only after the beans are soft — sugar added early keeps them stubbornly firm.",{"title":146,"text":147,"timerSeconds":148},"Make the gula melaka syrup","Simmer the chopped palm sugar with the water and knotted pandan leaves over low heat for 5 to 8 minutes, until every lump has dissolved and the syrup coats a spoon like warm honey. Strain it, cool it, and chill until cold — warm syrup will melt straight through the ice.",420,{"title":150,"text":151},"Chill everything","Put the serving bowls in the freezer and the corn, attap chee, grass jelly, beans and both syrups in the coldest part of the fridge for at least an hour. Every component should be properly cold before assembly begins.",{"title":153,"text":154},"Build the base","Working one bowl at a time, spoon 2 tablespoons each of red beans, sweetcorn, attap chee and grass jelly into the bottom of a frozen bowl. This layer goes underneath, never on top — the ice mound needs a stable foundation.",{"title":156,"text":157,"tip":158},"Shave and mound the ice","Shave the ice, or scrape the frozen trays hard with a metal spoon to lift fine flakes, and pile it over the toppings into a tall dome, pressing very lightly with the back of the spoon so it holds together without compacting into a snowball.","Work fast and keep the trays in the freezer between scrapes; ice that starts glistening has already begun to slump.",{"title":160,"text":161},"Syrup and milk, then serve","Drizzle the rose syrup over one side of the dome and the gula melaka syrup over the other so the colours stay distinct, then pour the evaporated milk slowly over the peak and finish with a thread of condensed milk if you want it sweeter. Serve immediately, before the mound settles.",{"calories":163,"protein":164,"carbs":165,"fat":75,"fiber":166,"sugar":167,"sodium":168,"estimated":114},390,8,84,7,62,110,[170],{"src":171,"alt":172},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fsingapore-ice-kachang\u002Fhero.svg","A tall mound of shaved ice streaked with pink rose syrup and dark palm sugar over red beans, corn and grass jelly",[174,175,176,177,178,179,180],"ice kachang","ais kacang","shaved ice","gula melaka","singapore dessert","red beans","attap chee","2026-08-21","dishroute-kitchen",{"items":184,"total":399,"page":100,"limit":400,"hasMore":401},[185,212,236,259,281,288,315,335,357,378],{"slug":186,"title":187,"nativeName":188,"romanized":189,"countrySlug":8,"region":190,"baseServings":75,"prepMinutes":191,"cookMinutes":192,"difficulty":79,"course":193,"diet":196,"mainIngredients":198,"images":202,"keywords":206,"publishedAt":181,"updatedAt":181,"authorSlug":182},"singapore-bak-kut-teh","Bak Kut Teh (Peppery Pork Rib 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cake slices and shredded laksa leaf",[308,309,310,311,312,313,314],"katong laksa","singapore laksa","coconut curry noodles","peranakan","rempah","dried shrimp","laksa lemak",{"slug":316,"title":317,"nativeName":318,"countrySlug":8,"baseServings":75,"prepMinutes":191,"cookMinutes":319,"difficulty":79,"course":320,"diet":321,"mainIngredients":322,"images":324,"keywords":328,"publishedAt":181,"updatedAt":181,"authorSlug":182},"kaya-toast","Kaya Toast (Singaporean Coconut Jam Toast with Soft Eggs)","咖椰吐司",45,[222],[83,85],[301,226,323],"butter",[325],{"src":326,"alt":327},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fkaya-toast\u002Fhero.svg","Crisp toast fingers filled with dark coconut kaya jam and thick butter slabs beside a dish of runny soft-boiled eggs",[329,330,331,332,333,334],"kaya toast","coconut jam","kopitiam","singapore breakfast","pandan","soft boiled 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