This recipe, like most of the others, was a result of craving for something not available where we were living at the time. My Almond Jelly need came during our stay in Cologne, twelve years ago. For some reason, recipes for Almond Jelly were scarce on the internet and no one I knew had one ("Buy the instant mix" was the kindly advice). It took me ages but I finally hit gold on a website which wasn't even a cooking one. The site belonged to a Malaysian young man studying in a UK university who had the same craving, begged his mum for her recipe and out of the kindness of his heart, published it on the internet for those in the same, sad shoes.

So I took his recipe, gave it a couple of turns, each time costing me a pretty penny as agar agar powder, condensed milk and tinned longans were expensive in the Asian supermarket in BarbarossaPlatz.

But everything is an investment if you want to get it right, so this is my final version which I've used all these years. The ingredients are the same, but the measurements have been altered to suit my tastebuds. You can, of course, do some tweaking on your own. The texture of the jelly is akin to firm silken tofu with a bit of bounce. Use more water or less agar agar powder if you like yours really soft. And if tinned longans are not an everyday event in your supermarket, both local or Asian, tinned mixed fruit will do the job too. Traditionally the jelly is set in square or rectangular forms, cut into squares or diamonds and served. I just decided to go fancy pants with decorative molds which I had recently acquired and can't get enough of.

Almond Jelly with Longan