Stained Glass Kyauk Kyaw/Jello

Stained Glass Kyauk Kyaw

Kyauk Kyaw, a popular dessert in Burmese cuisine, is a form of jello made with agar-agar instead of gelatin. Agar agar is a vegetable gelling agent extracted from red algae suitable for vegetarian and vegan diets. I've used the Telephone brand of agar agar powder in this dessert.

Stained Glass Jello Cubes

There are several Stained Glass Jello recipes on the worldwide web made with gelatin and I've been wanting to try it for a while. A potluck for Christmas was the ideal event for this festive dessert. I adapted a traditional recipe to my Burmese tastes by incorporating coconut milk into the recipe. It was a huge success! The neat thing about this dessert is that it can be changed to suit any holiday, simply by switching the colors of jello to suit the occasion. I used green (lime), red (strawberry) and yellow (lemon) packets of jello to represent the Christmas season. The white portion of the jello is the portion that is composed of coconut milk, condensed milk, water and agar agar. This is the kyauk kyaw part of the recipe.

To make this a semi-diabetic-friendly dessert, I used sugar-free Jello gelatin packets to reduce the sugar content which took nothing away from this dessert because the condensed milk is loaded with sugar and overly sweet.

Ingredients:

3 (3 oz.) boxes Jello gelatin, different colors (use sugar-free Jello, if necessary)
1 (8 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk or 2 (8 oz.) cups Silk Unsweetened Almond/Coconut Milk

3 Tbsp. agar agar powder

5 cups water, divided

Directions:

1. Dilute each box of jello in a separate container with 1 cup boiling water and refrigerate overnight to set.
2. Cut the set jello into cubes into a 9" x 13" glass pan and mix gently by hand.
3. Stir agar agar powder into 1 cup water, stir well and bring to a low simmer.
4. Stir over medium-low heat until agar agar dissolves and remove from heat.
5. Dilute condensed milk with coconut milk and 1 cup water and stir well with dissolved agar agar.
6. Allow milk mixture to cool completely before pouring evenly over coloured jello.
7. Do not stir.
8. Cool completely before refrigerating preferably overnight, but no less than 1 hour.