The Malaysiafiles: Part 5- Ice, Ice, Baby

The final part of the Malaysiafiles 2014 and another of my favourite things: iced drinks and desserts. Perfect for when the sun is shining and it's hot enough outside that you could physically cook yourself by midday.

I've mentioned things like cendol and ice kacang before, but no-one does it better than the Indonesians and Malaysians, which is where these things come from (there is apparently quite a fiery debate about who did what version of which dessert first, but I'm definitely not qualified to comment on that one).

Ice Kacang and Cendol are similar in the way that they both involve shaved ice (the best kind being snow-soft ice), with sweet syrups (often palm sugar syrup and condensed milk). Now here's where the variations come in: Ice kacang is almost always a mish-mash of delights such as agar jelly, grass jelly, sweet red beans, sweetcorn, palm seeds and fruits, like these:

Cendol, though, is named after the green, pandan-fragrant strands of jelly that's added to the shaved ice dessert. They kind of look like worms, but that's part of the fun.

Cendol seems to come in two different forms, each with its own region of origin (again, hotly debated). One of them is basically like ice kacang with added 'cendol', lbut my favourite way is simply cendol jelly with coconut milk poured over ice and palm sugar syrup:

I did giggle a bit at the sign.

There are simpler icy drinks to cool you down on muggy days though, like iced lemon and sea coconut drinks:

And other mixed ice drinks (this one was cendol and grass jelly with milk and golden syrup- strange but good!)

And of course, sweet red bean ice drinks:

This one came in a small JUG. <3

Last but certainly not least, there is iced Milo, and even better: Milo dinosaur.

It's quite obvious that Milo is quite a big thing in South East Asia.

It's quite nostalgic for me: I always associate the chocolatey, malty drink with visiting my cousins in Australia or Malaysia when I was little. However it was only relatively recently I discovered the existence of the Milo dinosaur.

This is a normal iced Milo:

And this is a Milo dinosaur:

It comes with EXTRA MILO on top. Best. Idea. Ever. Something that's easy to re-create at home, too (which has very dangerous implications for my waistline).

Well kids, that's it from the Malaysiafiles 2014.

Want to try making the wormy green things that are cendol for your own icy dessert adventures? Of course you do! Head on over to my blog Tashcakes! for my cendol recipe and to find out how it's done.