A cooling West Javanese iced dessert drink of green pandan rice-flour jelly worms swimming in sweet coconut milk and dark palm sugar syrup over shaved ice.
Es cendol is the Southeast Asian iced sweet of green rice-flour worms in coconut milk and palm sugar; in West Java the full iced version is known as es cendol. Cooling and sweet, it is the antidote to a tropical afternoon.
Cold and slushy, the drink is creamy with coconut and deeply caramel-sweet from gula merah, while the soft pandan jellies are slippery and faintly grassy. It is dessert and refreshment in one frosty glass.
Mung bean or rice starch gelatinizes when cooked then sets soft on cooling, and pressing the hot paste through holes into ice water shocks it into the signature tadpole shapes.
Variations
Dawet (Central/East Java), cendol with durian, with jackfruit or red beans, Bandung-style with bread
On the Palate
Where Es Cendol sits in the Indonesian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
7 steps · 30 min
- 18 min
Blend pandan leaves with water and strain to extract green juice.
- 212 min
Cook rice flour, tapioca and pandan juice into a thick, smooth paste.
Watch outCook the batter until it pulls thick and glossy off the spoon and no raw-flour taste remains — undercooked, the cendol won't hold its shape.
- 38 min
Press the hot paste through a colander into iced water to form short jelly worms.
Watch outPress the paste while it's piping hot straight into ice water — the cold shock is what sets those short tadpole tails; let it cool first and it clumps.
- 430 min
Let the cendol set and firm in the cold water, then drain.
- 510 min
Simmer palm sugar with water and a pinch of salt into a dark syrup.
Watch outReduce the palm sugar until it turns dark and just coats a spoon — too thin and it bleeds into the coconut milk instead of pooling.
- 65 min
Lightly salt and warm the coconut milk, then cool it.
- 73 min
Assemble cendol, palm syrup and coconut milk over a glass of shaved ice.
