* optional – since it’s summer, I think adding a bit of minty flavor to the raindrop cake really helps cool down the heat. 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. At his home kitchen in Mississauga, Placko made a version that uses 1/8 tsp. 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. Too little agar and the drop won’t hold its shape, too much and it becomes cloudy and more silicone than raindrop. 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. Agar is used in some unique dishes, such as the online sensation and viral spectacle known as the Raindrop Cake. Now, if you want to make this completely vegan, then you can use agar. There are some cultures that do not regularly use gelatin so it makes sense that alternative thickeners may be used, like agar powder. 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. Wong creates the ball by combing spring water with agar (a seaweed-derived natural. 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). Is the raindrop cake set to be the biggest dessert craze of 2016. I have never heard of the raindrop cake until recently even though I worked in Japan in the late 1990’s.

Agar agar raindrop cake