Tapioca pearl dessert

Two reasons make me not able to give this dessert up: the special taste of translucent pearl and the sweet silky coconut cream.

To prepare this yummy dessert, two main ingredients are necessary: large tapioca pearl and coconut cream.

　

Besides these two ingredients, you need sugar, dried fruits (such as cranberry, raisin), tropical fruits (such as mango, pineapple) and some other fruits (such as my favourite ruby grapefruit). Though fruits are optional, they bring color and special taste, they can even change the dessert appearance, either gel or cream.

Here are my steps:

(1) Bring water to boil, stir in 1 cup pearl; bring water to boil again, cover and heat under low power for 20 minutes.

(2) Strain water through a sieve, wash pearl with tap water until it is not sticky. Strain water fully.

(3) In a pot, add 5 cup water, 8 tbsp sugar and bring to boil. Stir in cooked pearl. Bring to boil, cover and heat under very low power (only allow very tiny bubble: under this condition, pearl will absorb water very evenly and slowly, meanwhile, it won't stick on the bottom of the pot). Stir occasionally during cooking until all pearls are translucent. Sometimes, you will find one or two pearls never change the color, always in white; don't hesitate and just pick it out, throw away -- it is not necessary to waste your time on these bad pearls.

(4) In a large container, add 1 cup coconut cream, one chopped mango, one chopped pineapple, some dried cranberry or golden raisin, pulp of one grapefruit, stir in translucent pearls, blend well and chill at least 2 hours before serving.

For the addition of mango and pineapple, there is something you need to know:

Some enzyme in mango and pineapple will destroy the agar-agar chain, therefore, if you would like to have a gelatinous dessert, don't forget to cook chopped mango and pineapple before adding them into the dessert mixture; otherwise, the dessert is like cream as shown here: