It is that time of the year! The year of the Dog is running out of the gate and the year of the Pig is grunting in. I realised (a little belatedly) that Chinese New Year is literally less than a week away and I haven’t done all my usual baking. CNY is supposed to be time off, but truly, it is one of the busiest times for us as we have to visit a whole slew of relatives and prepare gifts and red packets.
Chinese New Year is a bit of a tricky time for us who live a low-Carb lifestyle. Literally everything that is served in CNY is carby. It takes careful navigation and I often bring my own food to some of the places we visit. This year I’ve been a little busy so I will probably just make some almond cookies, the Bak Kwa that kid#1 loves and some almond butter cake. But I often make some konnyaku jelly for dessert. This time I decided to add mandarin orange juice to the konnyaku and put raspberries in the center of the jellies to get the festive red and orange colours. Bright red is truly the colour of the season – for some reason it is thought that red signifies good fortune. So I’m happy that this very simple jelly recipe keeps pace with the bright colours of the season…the sticklers for tradition would approve!
Raspberry and Mandarin Orange Jelly
Ingredients
- 1 packet of konnyaku powder
- Juice of 2 mandarin oranges (about 3/4 cup)
- 1 cup of sugar substitute
- 3 cups of water
- 1 punnet of raspberries
Method
- Mix the konnyaku powder with the sugar substitute
- Mix the orange juice and water in a saucepan and stir in the konnyaku powder and sugar substitute. Bring to a boil, stirring well.
- When the mixture has boiled, take off the heat but continue stirring for a few minutes to try to get rid of the bubbles.
- Ladle the jelly mix into jelly moulds, then drop the raspberries into the center of the mould, carefully dislodging any trapped air or bubbles.
- Refrigerate till set.
Still Feeling Peckish 