---
title: Kingyoku hydrangea
url: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kingyoku-hydrangea/
lang: en
journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/tamba/
---

# Kingyoku hydrangea

Cook the local flavors once more　/　Tamba, Hyogo

Kingyoku (kingyokukan) is a Japanese sweet made by dissolving agar, adding sugar or starch syrup, and letting it set; its translucence is used to suggest water or sky, and it appears most often in summer. This time the agar was colored with red cabbage water, and the portion with lemon juice turned pink. Cubes of the two colors were pressed around balls of white bean paste to form the flower of the rainy season.

## Ingredients

- White bean paste (powdered white an worked with water)
- Red cabbage
- Bar agar
- Lemon juice
- Water

## How I made it

1. Work powdered white an with water in a pan to make the bean paste
2. Chop red cabbage and simmer it in hot water to draw out a purple liquid
3. Tear in the soaked agar and simmer until dissolved
4. Add lemon juice to part of it to turn it pink
5. Pour into trays and chill in the fridge until set
6. Cut the set agar into tiny cubes
7. Roll the bean paste into balls and press the cubes on one by one to form a hydrangea

## This moment in the journey: Finishing the kingyoku hydrangeas

The agar had set nicely, so it was time to finish the sweets. I cut the blue and pink slabs into thin bars, then into tiny cubes.

Shaped after the flowers of each season, made from what is in season: Japanese sweets let you feel the four seasons. Many of them are small enough to shape in your hand.

I rolled the white bean paste into balls, set them on a black plate, and pressed the agar cubes on one by one from my palm. The petals gathered into a little hydrangea. There you go.

![A finished kingyoku hydrangea beside a plain bean-paste ball](https://karigurashijourney.com/img/tamba/s76-1200.jpg)
- Sources: https://news.allabout.co.jp/articles/o/63601/

Read this scene in the full journey: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/tamba/