How to Make Tanghulu, the Gorgeous, Glassy Chinese Street Treat

As a kid, spotting tanghulu—skewered fruit glazed with sugar—at the night markets in Taipei felt magical, like catching a glimpse of Santa Claus in real life. Tanghulu is traditionally made with hawthorn, a berry that tastes like a cross between an apple and a cranberry—tangy with a hint of astringency—while the hard sugar shell adds a satisfying crunch and sweetness. When I was a child, the bright red treats, stacked high on towering skewers, seemed larger-than-life, like tiny, glistening apples encased in glass. In Mandarin, “tang” means sugar and “hulu” refers to a gourd because the stacked round is supposed to resemble a gourd’s shape when you look at it from a certain angle. 

Tanghulu reportedly originates from Beijing; the story goes that a doctor first prepared tanghulu in 1189, when the Chinese emperor Guangzong’s favorite concubine, Huang Guifei, fell ill after indulging in too many rich foods. The doctor prescribed her hawthorn dipped in boiled rock sugar because, according to the philosophy behind traditional Chinese medicine, hawthorn aids digestion and boosts circulation, while rock sugar soothes the throat. Within two weeks, she was back to her old self. 

Over time, the practice of eating candied hawthorn spread, and people began skewering the fruits so that they were more convenient to eat. Today, tanghulu is made with not just hawthorn but an assortment of fruit, such as strawberries and grapes, and is widely available on the streets of China. The street versions are impressive: Vendors thread five, sometimes 10, pieces of fruit on long wooden sticks, then fan them out into a forest-like display of jeweled lollipops.

A TikTok Darling

While tanghulu has been making the social media rounds for several years, it catapulted to TikTok stardom in early 2024, with influencers claiming that making tanghulu was a straightforward affair, requiring just sugar, water, and fruit. Instead of the harder-to-find hawthorn, though, most people opted for garden-variety fruit like strawberries and grapes. The craze grew so quickly that doctors began issuing warnings about the risks of making it at home, as kids were being sent to the hospital with severe burns from attempting the recipe. While tanghulu is fundamentally just those three ingredients, making it does require some caution and skill, as boiling hot sugar can be dangerous and tricky to handle.

Sugar Science

When sugar is heated to 300°F (149°C), the mixture reaches what’s known as the “hard crack” stage—a critical point in candy-making where the syrup becomes glass-like when cooled. It’s what gives the sugary shell of tanghulu its signature crystalline crunch, but it’s also where things can go wrong. If you don’t heat it to the right temperature, the candy shell will be chewy–not brittle. Agitating or stirring the mixture as it bubbles may also cause it to crystalize, resulting in a grainy texture instead of a smooth, glossy finish.

How to Prevent Crystallization

The first time I made my sugar syrup to dip a batch of strawberries, I used only sugar and water and it seized up. Instead of looking like resin-dipped strawberries, my strawberries looked like they had been dipped in opaque white sand. 

Professional pastry chefs have a trick: They use inverted sugars like corn syrup or add a bit of acid, such as lemon juice, to prevent crystallization. Sucrose (the main component of sugar) tends to crystallize when it cools. But inverted sugars—like the glucose and fructose in corn syrup—interfere with that process by keeping the sucrose molecules from bonding. Similarly, acids like lemon juice break down sucrose into glucose and fructose, which also helps to keep crystallization at bay. Though I don’t call for invert sugar in my recipe below, I do utilize lemon juice, which helps the sugar melt evenly without crystallizing.

Making tanghulu isn’t difficult, but it’s also not as foolproof as TikTok might make you think. According to Emily Kellogg, a pastry chef and owner at EJ Bonbons and Confections in Woodstock, NY, it’s about finding the right balance of acid or corn syrup. “If there’s an overconcentration of acid, that candy will start breaking down and becoming soft over time,” she said. You can make a good tanghulu without using inverted sugar or acid, but as I learned the hard way, the sugar becomes a bit more finicky to handle. 

I recommend a good candy or instant-read thermometer to ensure your syrup hits 302ºF (150ºC), which is safely within that golden hard crack range of 300º to 310ºF (148º to 154ºF). If your syrup is even a few degrees cooler, the result will be a sticky, chewy shell instead of a shell with a perfect crystalline bite. Also, prioritize tart, firm fruits like grapes and quality strawberries, which pair better with the sugary shell. Avoid overripe fruits; they’ll quickly become mushy and fall apart.  

Once you get the hang of it, making tanghulu is a fun experience—and eating it is a magical one.  As the glaze hardens, it forms a sparkly crystalline shell, encasing the fruit into an ornament that’s almost too pretty to eat. 

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