Your new pal: jelly faux eggs!
Why go horse hooves when you can go seaweed?? Agar-agar coconut jelly eggs are a hilarious and realistic addition to a gravity-defying ramen cake! I was so excited when I began thinking about a vegan option for my ramen cake decoration that wasn’t fondant or too difficult or fussy to make. Coconut jelly is super simple to make, it sets firm and when poured into an egg shaped mould, looks exactly like a ramen egg sliced in two!
Coconut Jelly – Gelling and Jiggling
Like many Asians, I love a jiggly jelly-like texture. Not too sweet, a satisfying bite – my Poh-Poh would often serve Jell-o with ice cream for dessert, and we would almost always have perfect Jello mould “salads” in glistening red or green, dotted with canned peaches, on the Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving buffet. Odd, I know. My husband has long remarked on the mish-mash of our Chinese Canadian holiday celebrations – the usual 1980s Canadian holiday foods, plus large steaming platters of chow mein, or vegetarian pizza (my Poh-Poh would always make sure I had something to eat when I turned vegetarian!). Like many childhood favourites, I never knew what Jell-O really was. Gelatin is made from collagen taken from animal body parts. So, gelatin is not vegan. But agar-agar is!
What Is Agar-Agar?
Not only does it have a cool pirate-sounding name, but Agar-agar is darn cool in itself. Agar-agar is a plant-based gelatin extracted from seaweed and it can be purchased in a powdered form. When dissolved and combined with liquid, it gels and thickens the liquid into a firm, bouncy texture. When heated along with coconut milk and sugar, the agar agar dissolves and you can place the coconut milk mixture into silicon moulds to make EGGS! You can purchase agar-agar at many Asian supermarkets, specialty food stores and online, fo course.
Coconut Jelly Egg Ingredients
These booty-bouncin’ coconut jelly eggs use just a few ingredients: Coconut milk or cream, granulated white sugar, agar-agar powder and a pinch of salt. They look so cute and perfect tucked into the buttercream noodles of a gravity-defying ramen cake, and they’ll make the perfect fake egg for April Fool’s Day pranks!
Eggcelent! So How Do I Make Coconut Jelly Eggs?
There’s two options for making the coconut jelly eggs – for my eggs, I used both a silicon egg shaped mould for the egg whites, and a small 1-inch circle sphere mould to make the yellow-coloured egg yolks. I also used my melon baller to carve out the space for the yolk, then placed the yellow spheres into the divot. However, if you only have the egg shaped mould, you could refrigerate the egg, then carve out the yolk divot, and fill it with yellow-tinted coconut jelly liquid, then refrigerate it to set. You can see how I made my eggies below in this coconut jelly egg video!
Coconut Jelly Eggs
equipment
- 1 silicon egg shaped mould
- 1 small 1 inch sphere mould
- 1 melon baller
ingredients
- 1 400ml can full fat coconut milk
- 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 tbsp agar agar powder
- pinch fine sea salt
- 1 tsp yellow gel food colouring
instructions
- In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, add the coconut milk, granulated sugar, agar-agar powder and salt, whisking to combine.
- Allow the sugar and agar-agar powder to completely dissolve, stirring occasionally, about two to three minutes. Mixture will begin to thicken.
- Being careful to work quickly and efficiently before the agar agar sets, pour the coconut milk mixture into the egg shaped moulds.
- Pour the remaining coconut milk mixture into a small bowl. Whisk in the yellow gel food colouring to combine.
- Using a tiny spoon or a food syringe, fill the smaller sphere mould cavities with the yellow coconut jelly.
- Carefully move the moulds to the fridge and refrigerate until firm, one hour.
- When the jelly has set, remove moulds from the fridge. Pop out the white eggs and using the melon baller, carve out a divot for the yolk. Pop out the yellow spheres and place into the divot.
- Coconut jelly eggs can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to three days! Enjoy your jiggly new egg friends!
I can’t wait to coconut jell-ify a million things!! My ramen cake recipe and tutorial is coming up next, stay tuned! xo Lyndsay
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