Desserts,  Hawker Food,  Under $1

Homemade Lao Ban Beancurd Pudding with 3 ingredients

August 9, 2013 /

August 9- Lao Ban Soya Milk Beancurd

This post is long overdue! I’ve always liked traditional beancurd but only eat them cold. So when 老伴豆花 took  Singapore by storm 2 years back, I just knew I had to try making this chilled dessert. I wouldnt say that this is beancurd though, but soya pudding. Some versions (like Mr Bean and Jollybean, I believe), use gelatin in their puddings. The texture is wobbly, strand-ny (you know?), strangely chewy and disintegrates easily. Soya puddings are not created equal.

#beancurd #overdose

laoban beancurd

I prefer my beancurd pudding to be a bit more firm, yes, just like the original! I love the Lao Ban outlet at Clementi City Vibe but the one at Bugis Village was disappointing- the puddings didn’t solidify enough and I was drinking a bowl of soya bean milk halfway through. Wonder if these new outlets are franchised. There’s a recipe online using Polleney soya powder, but this one using packet soya milk is an easy way to make the chilled dessert, plus it gives you the “thrill” of achieving something similar to Lao Ban at home. To me it is delicious and almost like the real thing, but it is unrealistic to expect it to taste exactly like Lao Ban :)

Photos of what I used:

drinho

August 9- Phoon Huat Instant Jelly Powder

August 9- Coffeemate

I have tried making this with Vitasoy, Yeo’s and Drinho.. my family loved the taste of Drinho best. Vitasoy has its trademark fragrance but we found it too thin. Yeo’s didn’t turn out well.. it had quite a strange texture which I can’t explain. 88 loved both Vitasoy and Drinho (but then again she also loved the yucky gelatin versions from Jollybean. What can I say)! Drinho is my choice for sure. The picture above was made using Drinho.. thicker, creamy and smooth.

As with cooking, tweak the recipe after you try your first batch. If you prefer it more sweet, add some sugar, one to two teaspoon a batch. If your version turns out less set than you would have liked, add more instant jelly powder. Experiment and have fun!

laoban2

laoban1

laoban

*Note: If you don’t take coffeemate (but eat hotdogs, bacon and processed food anyway.. #justsaying), you may wanna try replacing it with milk powder or leave it out altogether. Texture will for sure be different!

Homemade Lao Ban Beancurd (budgetpantry.com)
Makes 5 (rice) bowls

What you need:

1 litre Drinho Soya Bean Milk
50g Nestle Coffeemate Powder – pre-scooped in a bowl and ready to use
4 flat teaspoons (about 20g) Red Man Instant Jelly Powder (from Phoon Huat) – pre-scooped in a bowl and ready to use
Before you start, prepare the ingredients and get the bowls/ containers ready!

Steps:

Heat the soya bean milk in a pot til hot. Be careful not to let it reach boiling point.

Add in coffeemate and stir til fully dissolved.

Keep stirring, and when you’re sure that the soya milk is very hot (you should feel steam coming from the pot), add in the instant jelly powder and stir til fully dissolved. Important: Don’t stir in when the milk is just warm, if not it won’t set nicely and mixture will tend to separate.

Quickly turn off flame and pour into porcelain/ glass bowls/ containers that can withstand higher heat.

Refrigerate overnight or if you can’t wait, check back after 4-5 hours. TIP: If it’s still too wobbly, put in freezer for 1-2 hours! Don’t worry, it won’t freeze.

How much I spent:

$1.20 for Drinho Soya Bean Milk
$4.90 for 200g Instant Jelly Powder which can last you forever, until the novelty is dead.
Coffee mate from my pantry

42 Comments

  • monica

    February 3, 2014 at 9:16 pm

    Hi Chrissy!

    I tried this recipe and it turned out well! the jelly was ready to eat in 4.5 hours! Thank you for the recipe!

    Im going to try using seasons soy milk, and the powdered version :)

    • ted sis

      March 15, 2019 at 12:02 pm

      HI ,

      My name is Ted sis and i am the distributor of Melilea Organic Soymilk Powder.
      I wonder if you are open to try our organic puddling and comment on it?

  • Chrissy- budgetpantry.com

    February 5, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    Hey Monica, sorry I missed your comment! I’m glad this recipe worked for you.. it took me a lot of trial and error to get it “set” the way I like it! Let me know if Seasons is any good, if you try it :)

  • Thanks!

    March 19, 2014 at 12:53 am

    Oh no I didn’t read the instructions clearly…accidentally put instant noodles into the soya milk T_T

  • Chrissy@budgetpantry.com

    June 16, 2014 at 12:57 am

    Hi Christina, sorry, I termed it “instant noodle” pot for easy reference. You can use any pot you want, really!

  • Madeline

    June 22, 2014 at 1:39 pm

    Hi Chrissy, where can I buy Red man instant jelly powder? I went to few supermarket also can’t locate it. :(

  • Karen

    June 22, 2014 at 9:18 pm

    Hi, can we substitute the creamer wif others? We dun use coffee mate at hm. N no pt getting a big pkt jus for Tis?

  • Chrissy@budgetpantry.com

    June 22, 2014 at 9:30 pm

    Hello Karen, I’ve never made this with anything else, but you may want to try milk powder + a drop of vanilla essence to substitute. That’s the closest I can think of.

  • Madeline

    July 5, 2014 at 12:29 am

    Hi Chrissy, finally manage to buy instant jelly powder. Just make the Beancurd, kids can’t wait to taste it =)
    Thanks for sharing the simple recipe!

  • Jessica Loh

    April 14, 2015 at 10:31 pm

    Hi Chrissy,

    I am from Canada. Is it possible to use Vanilla flavoured organic soy milk? Also we only have jello powder or pudding powder here. Do you think I can use the pudding powder then?

    I love your blog!

    Jessica

    • Chrissy@budgetpantry.com

      April 15, 2015 at 11:27 am

      Hello Jessica,

      Yup, I think it is perfectly fine if you use vanilla flavoured organic soy milk! You’ll have to do a trial and error with the pudding powder though.. I haven’t tried it myself but don’t see why it shouldn’t work. It’ll still set for sure, just that the texture will be a lot firmer and not as silky. Some people have tried it with gelatin powder. You could give it a go too!

      Chris

  • Hailey

    May 26, 2019 at 8:07 pm

    Do you know why the beancurd is not 100% white? it has obvious traces of the gelatine when cold. it is firm and tasty but i was hoping it would look same as the hot tau huay.

    • Chris-budgetpantry

      May 27, 2019 at 4:22 pm

      What gelatine? There’s no gelatine in the recipe and mine doesn’t have traces of the instant jelly powder I used.

  • Mama Mia

    October 13, 2020 at 12:23 pm

    I bought some instant jelly from Singapore. Poon Huat sometime ago . Does instant jelly expire? I’ m from Australia . Can I substitute with gelatine using your method?
    Thank you for sharing.

  • Valerian

    November 19, 2020 at 6:29 pm

    I love soy bean pudding! I bought mine at jollybean when I visited Singapore a while back but I didn’t quite like the texture. Then I found a great soy bean pudding sold at a food court there and it was amazing! The texture was quite like the pics you shown up there.

    So when i went back to my place, tried making it with all sorts of gelling agent, and yes, instant jelly powder works best. Using agar made the pudding a bit hard and gelatine made it wobbly, and has a weird aftertaste. (I used a different brand creamer powder and alpro soybean milk btw, didn’t taste quite like the one I had in Singapore but still good)

    My first time trying your recipe, everything turned out great but when I tried to do it again, there was a separation between the jelly and soy bean part when it cooled down. I mean, the soybean part was on top and there was a clear jelly at the bottom.

    I wonder what went wrong. I tried making it again several times after that and followed the same instructions, but still yielded the same result. Is there any specific way to know that the jelly mix is well incorporated before leaving it to cool?