Osmanthus jelly

Ingredientsserves 6

Equipment

• A 20 cm square tin, wetted

Method

1. Rinse the dried osmanthus once under cold water and drain; do not soak it. The scent sits in an oil in the petals and water takes it away. Keep a pinch back for the top.
2. Snip the agar into short lengths and soak it soft in cold water for about half an hour, then lift it out.
3. Put six cups (1.5 litres) of water in a pot with the agar and the rock sugar and simmer gently until the agar has completely dissolved — the water runs clear and lifting the spoon shows no threads — about ten minutes. Agar left half-dissolved sets into hard strands through the jelly, so this step cannot be hurried.
4. Off the heat, stir in the osmanthus and the goji and leave it two minutes for the scent to come up. Osmanthus simmered with the agar for ten minutes has no scent left.
5. Pour into the wetted 20 cm tin. Stir as you pour for flowers spread through it; leave it alone once poured and the osmanthus floats up to set as a layer on top.
6. Cool at room temperature until set — agar sets without the fridge, about an hour — then chill an hour, cut into diamonds and serve cold.
7. With gelatine: slake 10 g in a little cold water first and stir it in only after the water and sugar have boiled and come off the heat, then chill four hours or more. Agar is crisp and snaps, gelatine is soft and wobbles; they are two different cakes, and the clear diamond on the teahouse dessert cart is the agar one.

Take care

• No milk, no egg, no flour. Set with either agar or gelatine it belongs covered in the fridge and eaten within three days; a cut piece that weeps has been standing too long.

The story

Osmanthus flowers in the weeks around the mid-autumn festival, which makes this an autumn cake in Hong Kong: a clear diamond on the teahouse dessert cart with the flowers floating at the top, or cut into squares with a few goji at the dessert shop. Guilin in Guangxi, Xianning in Hubei and Suzhou in Jiangsu are the recognised growing areas, and Xianning is known as the home of osmanthus. There is a second, quite different 桂花糕 from the lower Yangtze, steamed from glutinous rice flour and thick and white; it shares the name and nothing else with the clear agar-set cake of the Hong Kong teahouse.

Same wall

Malay spongeBowl pudding, red bean or plainWhite sugar rice cake

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.