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Tanghulu:
glass you can eat.

Fruit in a candy shell thin enough to shatter. It comes down to dry fruit, syrup cooked to hard crack, one twirl and eating it the same day.

  1. 01Fruit
  2. 02Syrup
  3. 03Test
  4. 04Dip
  5. 05Crack

Sources checked OCT 24, 2026

Strawberry tanghulu skewers in a thin, clear candy shell, one cracked open.
A shell thin enough to shatter, clear enough to see the fruit.

01

Dry fruit, at room temperature

Almost any fruit works, as long as it's firm enough to stay put on the skewer. Two rules matter more than the fruit itself: it has to be completely dry, and it shouldn't be cold. Chilled fruit sets the syrup too fast, and dry, room-temperature fruit gives the thin, glassy coat.

America's Test Kitchen threads its fruit onto 10-inch wooden skewers, covering about 4 inches of each.

Strawberries, grapes, mandarin segments and kiwi on dark granite.

02

Two parts sugar, one part water, no stirring

America's Test Kitchen uses 1 cup of sugar to ½ cup of water and cooks it without stirring to 300–310°F, the hard-crack stage, in about 15 minutes. Other recipes use different ratios, so follow the one you pick.

Leave the spoon out. Stirring can make the sugar crystallize, and then you start over.

  1. Thread230–235°F
  2. Soft ball235–240°F
  3. Firm ball245–250°F
  4. Hard ball250–265°F
  5. Soft crack270–290°F
  6. Hard crack300–310°F

Stage temperatures: Exploratorium. Watch for the cue America's Test Kitchen gives: big bubbles breaking across the surface, and the syrup just starting to turn amber.

Clear sugar syrup boiling in a saucepan with a thermometer.

03

No thermometer? Ask cold water

Drop a little syrup into a glass of cold water and feel what it becomes. At hard crack it forms hard, brittle threads that snap when you bend them. Anything softer needs more time.

Careful. Molten sugar burns. Let the drop cool in the water for a few moments before you touch it.

Hard, brittle threads that snap

That's hard crack: 300–310°F. Start dipping.

04

One twirl, then shake

Tip the pan so the syrup pools on one side. Give each skewer a single rotation to coat the fruit completely, shake off the excess, then set it. America's Test Kitchen dips it in ice water for 5 to 10 seconds. Other recipes let it set in the air.

A gloved hand twirling a skewer of strawberries in hot syrup.
  1. 1Tilt the pan
  2. 2One full twirl
  3. 3Shake off the drips
  4. 4Ice water, 5–10 s

05

Eat it today, ideally within two hours

The shell is at its best right away. America's Test Kitchen says to serve within 2 hours. Don't refrigerate it: the humidity melts the coating.

A little history: legend dates tanghulu to the Song dynasty (960–1279), and Chinese hawthorn is the traditional fruit. Wikipedia

On the channel

How about some tanghulu?

Our candied strawberry short, made to be watched with the sound on. Listen for the crack. Press play to load it from YouTube.