Making Dragon's Beard Candy?

[Salt Creep]

Has anybody tried making dragon's beard candy at home?

I haven't seen the candy in years, and in fact never even knew what it was called. The first time I saw it was in a supermarket in Monterey Park, CA. Mom and Dad were shopping in a Chinese supermarket, and there was this old gentleman in the front pulling what I thought was dough, making long fine noodles. He then wrapped the noodles around chopped nuts and sesame seeds, and Dad got me a box. YUM!!!!

We stopped going to that supermarket when another one opened up closer to home, and I eventually forgot about the candy for a while. Then one day I was reading eGullet and came upon the thread about hand pulled noodles, which led to this page. After watching the video clip, I went "THAT'S IT!!!!" and decided to try making the candy myself.

I found a recipe online, and another article about using maltose instead of Karo syrup for the sugar noodles. Since I knew that the local 99 Ranch market had maltose in little tubs, I figured I'd give it a shot. Got myself a tub, plus two bags of rice flour, and a bag of chopped nuts.

Well, I found out pretty quickly why there isn't some guy making dragon's beard candy in every Chinese supermarket! I figured that the maltose was thick enough, so I didn't boil it like I would with the Karo syrup. I stuck it in the fridge overnight, and scooped (pulled/dragged/wrestled) out the sticky mass onto a tray of rice flour. Unfortunately, things went rapidly downhill from there!

The problem was once I reached a certain point, the sugar mass started getting a bit runny and the noodle threads kept breaking under their own weight. I ended up with a tangled mass of micro-spaetzle instead of nice long strands of capelli d'angelo.

I even tried compromising and making little candy siu-mai using circles of sugar dough (the result of kneading the maltose in the rice flour) but the weight of the crushed nuts would make the dumpling collapse. It tasted good but I ended tossing the sugar mess, and had nothing to show but the yummy filling and a pair of oddly smooth and soft hands (is sugar a moisturizer?)

Anyway, tomorrow I'm getting another tub of maltose. I like it because it's not very sweet, but this time I'm going to boil it until it reaches the hard crack stage. I think I'll get a non-stick silicone cup too, to harden the sugar in. Wish me luck!

Ken

[annachan]

It tasted good but I ended tossing the sugar mess, and had nothing to show but the yummy filling and a pair of oddly smooth and soft hands (is sugar a moisturizer?)

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I do use sugar scrubs at home to make my hands softer....

Keep us posted on the next batch. Would love to get a successful recipe and some good techiques from you.

[hzrt8w]

I had seen the demo of dragon hair candy making years ago and had tasted it. Sorry... I have to say it looks better than it tastes. My impression: too powdery.

The making process is a work of art... starting from a small piece of sugar/corn syrup slab, hand-pulled to form a ring... a ring becomes 2 rings, 2 become 4, 4 to 8 and let the exponential equation take over. Very impressive demo. It is similar to hand-pulled noodles.

Edited June 21, 2006 by hzrt8w (log)

[Salt Creep]

Well, I came this close to getting it right! I boiled the maltose until it looked thicker (couldn't find my candy thermometer, but it hadn't reached the hard crack stage as far as I could tell) then put it in the fridge after it cooled down. The next day the mass was rock hard, so I zapped it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and it became nice and malleable.

I started looping and pulling away, and even got as far as making some fine noodles! Alas, in my excitement I forgot to dust in flour just ONCE, and the hair turned into dreadlocks and there was no fixing it! Microwaving the mass softened it all enough to form another ball, but with the rice flour already mixed in, the strands tended to break easily. I finally gave up after I got too full eating bits of dough rolled around the peanut filling.

I guess I'll try again next week, maybe!

Ken (now with soft smooth hands)

[Dejah]

I guess I'll try again next week, maybe!

Ken (now with soft smooth hands)

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Ken,

We want pictures! Or better still, a video of your progress.

[JasonTrue]

When I was demoing with Mr. Wong from Bamboo Garden, he gave me a chance to try once. The spiral movement was a deceptively important part of the process of stretching; When I was moving correctly, things worked quite well. When I used my more natural clumsy approach, it was harder to stretch evenly. The first time I did this with his instruction, instead of the ad hoc approach I tried at home beforehand, it went surprisingly well, though my results were not nearly as fine as his own work.

If you use the hard crack stage (which I think Bamboo Garden's uses also), you might benefit from the trick that they use: after the sugar mass has cooled, microwave the mass for about a minute to soften it up enough to manipulate. They stored small cups of the sugar mass at room temperature.

The sugar was never so hot as to burn my hands. Though I did use latex gloves.

[Salt Creep]

My replacement camer battery finally arrived, so I'll be taking pictures with my next attempt! Or rather, I'm going to have to get someone to take pictures for me because my hands will be covered with flour.

Jason, could you describe the spiral movement?

Thanks,

Ken

[Salt Creep]

Well, success at last! Sort of!

Here's what I did:

First I boiled the maltose until it started running off in thick sheets from the spoon I was mixing it with. Then I poured the batch into a silicone mold with a hole in the middle, just to ease getting the pulling started.

After letting it cool and harden overnight, I unmolded the maltose ring into a tub of rice flour.

The pre-formed hole made it easy to start pulling.

then then

and finally

By this time the threads were starting to break, so I figured I ought to start wrapping the filling. An unexpected glitch came when I tried using scissors to cut the threads; for some reason the cut ends ended up welded together! I tried pulling the threads apart instead, but couldn't get them to break evenly. The strands were all sort of blonde too, rather than white, but when I pulled instead of cut the threads apart, then stretched a bit more and turned white.

Wrapping up the filling was more difficult than I thought it would be too. Too much threads and the outside was too chewy, too little and the filling fell out. Shaping them will take practice too. I ended up with a big mess on the table.

Behold... cocoons!

At least now I know I can probably make noodles.

Ken

[aprilmei]

I am very impressed.

How much did you make? and were you (and your friends/family) able to eat it all? I can only eat a couple pieces at a time so I'll probably never make it unless I move to a place where I can't buy it.

[JasonTrue]

That's visible on the video of Mr Wong making the candy on my web site; look for the "download video" link on this page.

It's more obvious when Mr. Wong is personally scolding you for not doing it, and forcing your hands into the correct movement. I think people who've studied aikido might get the idea faster than me.

Also note that candymakers to not use scissors to cut the strands; if I remember correctly, that was done by flatteing my thumb and forefinger together and pulling somewhat suddenly.

My replacement camer battery finally arrived, so I'll be taking pictures with my next attempt! Or rather, I'm going to have to get someone to take pictures for me because my hands will be covered with flour.

Jason, could you describe the spiral movement?

Thanks,

Ken

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[Salt Creep]

I am very impressed.

How much did you make? and were you (and your friends/family) able to eat it all? I can only eat a couple pieces at a time so I'll probably never make it unless I move to a place where I can't buy it.

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I only made that one container, plus a few more that we snacked on. I ended up tossing about half the strands when I felt they were starting to stick together too much. I probably should work faster.

I can't eat very many myself, especially the way it ended up. As my sister said, it's good but it gets tacky enough to pull your fillings out! I'm going to have to try and get a thinner layer of the threads over more of the filling. It was fun though!

Jason, I'm going to have to watch that video over and over and practice some more! The professionally made stuff sure has a better texture. Thanks!

Ken

[JasonTrue]

Another Mr. Wong pointed out, in my efforts to be as careful as possible, is that moving somewhat faster than you think is a good idea is actually necessary, because the candy wants to melt while you're pulling it.

I was trying to avoid unevenness and resulting broken strands, but if you spend more than about 10 minutes doing the pulling you're likely to make things sticky.

[aprilmei]

Ken, how many times were you able to pull the strands before they broke?

[Salt Creep]

I didn't really keep count, but I think it was around three or four pulls between each photo. I just compared with Jason's video, and the thing I did different is that I only made one loop between pulls and kept the loops short, while the guy in the video pulled out long and made several loops between pulls. I'll try that next time.

Ken