For years, I have been seeing videos of tanghulu being made and consumed on TikTok and Instagram, as well as seeing pictures of this delicious snack go viral on Pinterest. Tanghulu is a traditional Chinese snack that consists of a variety of fruits such as strawberries, kiwis, grapes, oranges, pears, apples, peaches, raspberries, etc. Tanghulu consists of various coatings of hardened sugar syrup. I found the entire process of creating the syrup and hardening it to be interesting and less time-consuming than I thought. This snack can be made in less than 10 minutes if done correctly.

Supplies needed:

• Any fruit of your choice (I chose strawberries because I already had some in my refrigerator)
• White sugar
• Bamboo skewers
• Water
• 1 cup measuring cup
• Pot
• Microwave/stove
• Spoon
• Paper towels
• Container/plate
• Bowl
• Ice

How to make your own tanghulu:

1. Lay out all of your ingredients.
2. Rinse or soak your fruit to ensure that it is as clean as possible before being candied.
3. Dry off the fruit and place it inside a container/bowl.
4. Place the fruit on the skewers, I suggest placing 3-4 strawberries on one skewers depending on the length of the skewers you have and how much they can carry. I placed too many strawberries on my skewers the first time around which caused them to break and some of my strawberries to end up in the trash due to them falling on the ground.
5. Turn on the stove.
6. Place the pot on the stove.
7. Fill up the measuring cup with 1 cup of sugar and dump it in the pot.
8. Fill up the measuring cup with another cup of sugar and dump it in the pot.
9. Rinse the remaining sugar out of the measuring cup.
10. Fill up the measuring cup with water and pour it into the pot.
11. Let the sugar and water sit, don’t stir it or move the pot around.
12. Wait for it to start boiling.
13. Once it starts to turn a golden brown color either dip your strawberries directly into the mixture or pour the mixture onto the strawberries by using the spoon.
14. After the strawberry is fully coated with as many layers of your choosing, place it into the bowl of ice water and stir it around for the syrup to harden.
15. Repeat until all of the strawberries are fully coated and the syrup is hard.
16. Enjoy your sugary snack.

Overall, I loved being able to spend time with my family while making such a delicious snack. I would recommend tanghulu to anyone who loves other kinds of candied fruits such as candy apples or candy grapes.