Everyone of these miniature fruits are made from sweetened yellow bean paste, and food colourings. The shine comes from a glaze made of agar. Don’t be put off, they are not as difficult to make as they look, and you can have a lot of fun with your children making them.
Make each one small, 10-15gms of yellow bean paste is perfect, if you make them too big, they are difficult to dip in the agar later and will not hold their shape. A good way to hold the fruit is to skewer them on toothpicks as you paint and dip them.

Ingredients
200 gms Yellow Bean
150 gms Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
100 ml Coconut Milk
Food Coloring

Ingredients  for Glaze
5 gms Agar Jelatin
150 Water
50 gms Sugar

Preparation
1. Soak the yellow beans obernight, steam for 45 minutes.
2. Pound or blend the bean to a paste, add mix with the sugar, salt and coconut milk.
3. Place into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring continuously until the paste thickens, then leave it to cool.
4. Now comes the artistic stage, take small pieces of the yellow bean paste, about 10gms each and form them into fruit shapes.
5. I find it’s a good idea to use toothpicks and a block of foam to hold the shapes while I paint them with the food colouring.
6. Now to glaze, mix the agar with water and heat until the agar has fully dissolved.
7. Leave it to cool slightly, but be careful not to let it set.
8. Dip the fruit into the agar and stand them up by pushing the toothpick into foam or polystyrene. Let the agar set on the fruit, then repeat the process and coat the fruit again with another layer of agar. You may have to reheat the agar in the pan to melt it again each time.

Hints for Each Fruit 

Banana – Bananas are slightly oblong, with 4 stripes running down the sides.

 Chom Pu – These are a Thai fruit, a little pink yellow and orange on the base and make the top slightly green.

Cherries – The stalk I made from a stalk of coriander

Chillies – I rolled out the basic shape and used a blunt knife to make the leaf shape at the top. Then skewer them with a toothpick and paint with food coloring.

Man Cud – the leaves on the top are made by pressing in the top of a pen to give the round leaf shape.

Melon Slices – I found it is easier to not paint the bottom edge of the melon.

Mini Orange – One of my favourites, make the leaf separately and be careful when dipping this one in agar because the leaf can come off.

Mini Sweet Corn – Make a tapering sausage shape, cut a grating into the soya with a sharp knife, then paint with yellow food colouring and green edging.

Mini Tomato – A blunt knife is used to make the star shaped leaves, by pushing down the soft yellow bean paste.

Mini Pears – I made these pears too big, and as you can see one of them bent when I was coating them in agar.

This pie originates from China, however my favorite type of this pie is the slightly salty, slightly sweet version with salty eggs inside they sell in Thailand. For this you will need salty eggs yolks which take 2-3 weeks to prepare. You will also need yellow beans which you can either buy in packets, or prepare from green beans – see the ingredients section of this site for instructions on both these items. The most difficult part of this is the pastry, which is made from multiple layers of 2 types of pastry.

Ingredients First Layer Pastry
150 gms Wheat Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt
7 Tablespoons Oil
80 ml Cool Water

Ingredients  for Second Layer Pastry
70 gms Wheat Flour
7 Tablespoons Oil
6 Tablespoons Cool Water

Ingredients  for Filling
200 gms Yellow Soya Bean
30 gms Sugar
1 Tablespoon Salt
7 Tablespoons Pork Lard
3-4 Salty Egg Yolks

Preparation
1. Steam the yellow soya for 20 minutes.
2. Pound them in a Thai mortar to form a paste, mix with the sugar, the oil and salt.
3. Warm the paste gently in a pan until it thickens as the water evaporates, then leave to cool.

Prepare First Layer of Pastry
4. Mix the flour with the sugar, salt, oil and water. This needs to form a smooth dough, so add a little more water if necessary and knead a little until you have a pastry dough.

Prepare Second Layer of Pastry
5. Mix the flour with the oil and water. As with the first layer adjust the water and mix until you have a smooth pastry dough.

Even More Pastry Preparation
There’s a little more preparation work to do, the two layers are rolled out in a way so that tiny thin layers of each pastry are formed.
6. Roll out the first out. Roll the second layer out separately. Put the second layer ontop of the first layer and roll up both layers together by hand to form a sausage shape.
7. Roll the pastry sausage flat, turn it 90 degrees and roll up again into a sausage, then again roll the sausage flat, turn 90 degrees and roll up yet again into a sausage then roll the sausage flat.
8. If it’s too much work, you can use puff pastry from the supermarket!

Filling and Cooking
9. Roll the pastry into a flat disc. Spoon the soya mixture into a pile in the middle.
10. Push the salty egg yolks into the soya beans, (salty egg yolks should be hard from the salt, they are not cooked!).
12. Lift up the edges to wrap the filling up in the pastry.
13. Grease a baking tray, turn the pie over to hide the seam where the pastry was joined.
14. Cook in a preheated over at 170 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes

This is a salty bean sauce made with yellow soya beans. You can see it used to add a salty contrast taste in todays recipe. Once you open the bottle, keep it in the fridge