Shaved ice, which we used to have in our early life, isn’t always similar to the icy, frozen-solid; it’s far made through shaving or grating solid blocks of clear ice into a fluffy, snow-like consistency and to gain a cloudy colour. Shaved ice can be crushed with the help of a rolling pin or a hammer. These are used when faster cooling is expected to cool down drinking water or beverages during an outdoor event. Shaved ice is also used for shipping seafood to non-coastal areas like freshwater prawns, fishes, lobsters, mussels, etc.
If you are up to prepare any summer cooler, you need the best size of crushed ice. Remember that the crushed ice with smaller particles gets melted quickly, whereas the crushed ice with more significant particles melts slowly. Industries produce crushed ice in larger amounts and sell them in bulk; one good thing about crushed industrial ice is that they are clear and transparent like tiny crystals. If we talk about shaved ice, it is specifically meant to be eaten, unlike every kind of crushed ice, which gives us a clear difference between shaved and crushed ice. Since 27 BCE, this desert has been at the top of most of our lists; children like it too with sweet and thick flavourful syrups, with fruit toppings and sprinkles on top of it. Many kinds of syrups can be added to the shaved ice, like condensed milk, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, gummies or candies, whipped cream, and even runny fruit jellies.
How to prepare them at home?
Who hasn’t made a shaved ice dessert at their home? It’s not possible that anyone didn’t try it once in their lifetime. So here are the steps to make the shaved ice dessert with a topping of your choice in the best way:
Step 1: Gather all the ingredients you need to make your sweet shaved ice dessert. The most common and essential ingredients to make shaved ice are ice and sugar with toppings like condensed milk, fruit slush of your choice, ice cream of your favourite flavour, and sprinkles.
Step 2: Prepare your flavourings of whatever your choice is. There are so many methods you can make your flavoured syrup or sugar syrups. Some of the ways are:
- Chop up a fruit: Fruits make up a perfect pair with condensed milk or just sugar water. You can cut up some apples, kiwis, pineapple, mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, peaches, etc.
- Use syrups: Different kinds of flavoured syrups are available in the market that you can use directly.
- Use beverages: If you like coffee, then you can add in it or even iced tea, and juice pops go well after crushing them down.
Step 3: You need to take out your ice cubes or ice block to shave them. You can do it with an ice shaver, and if it is not available in your home, then you can use your blender to shave up the ice, which people find the most convenient to do. As discussed earlier, some people hesitate to shave ice in their blenders and use a hammer or rolling pin to break the ice into shaves.
Step 4: Take any glass dish to prepare and serve it beautifully; put your ice in any way you want, but traditionally, you can decorate it in a dome shape or hemispherical shape.
Step 5: Decorate the shaved ice with condensed milk, syrups, chopped fruits or even mixed fruits, vanilla ice cream (recommended), chocolate or strawberry syrup, and finally sprinkles.
Step 6: Enjoy eating!
Traditional national shaved ice desserts:
- KAKIGORI (Japan): This dessert was introduced In Japan in the late 10th and 11th centuries. The Kakigori machine consists of a large and sharp blade that finely shaves the ice from a large block. It is typically made with unflavoured ice, which is stacked on top of the other to form a tower-like structure. It is often served with fresh fruits like strawberries and melons and their traditional white sugar syrup.
- SHAVE ICE (Hawaii): This small country’s shaved ice is known as one of the best desserts among all the shaved ice. They use some unique flavours from bubblegum to blue raspberry. They also make use of locally grown ingredients like lilikoi and soursop. They serve a scoop of flavoured ice cream in the center of the shaved ice.
- GOLA/ CHUSKI (India): The vendors make use of hand shaving ice machines, which they operate with the hand itself. They compress shaved ice into a cup, and put a stick in between to give it a shape like a popsicle and then add syrups on the whole exterior, which gets absorbed inside out; some of the most popular flavours are Kala Khatta, mango rose, and even Rabdi which is kind of evaporated milk.
- BAO BING (Taiwan/ China): This kind of shaved ice dessert is also made and popular in Malaysia. It is usually stacked up high and is meant to share with others, which is considered a gesture of love. This dessert mainly involves mangoes, lichee, and rambutan. Some toppings like red beans, peanuts, mochi, grass jelly, and even condensed milk are trendy.
- HALO-HALO (Philippines): This dessert variant is usually served in tall glasses to show layers of colours. Its main ingredients are usually fresh fruit like jackfruit, condensed milk, and an ingredient known as Nata de coco, which is typically a coconut gel. Other ingredients as sprinkles in the dessert are shredded coconut, palm nuts, and moong beans.
- RASPADO (Mexico): Raspado is a metal tool by which ice is shaven into a plastic cup and a straw so that people can slurp the mix of syrups and icy water together to get topped with milk, different kinds of syrups, and fruit of customer’s choice. The most common flavours used in Mexican shaved ice are tamarind and Rompope.
People shift to any other desserts and make them top in their list, but shaved ice dessert stays at the top as it is a kind of dessert that takes us back to our childhood when we used to eat a lot of shaved ice without worrying about brain freeze. We hope you got to know how to make our childhood’s favourite dessert easily at our homes.
