Homemade Ice Blended Bandung

"Mum, I didn't know that you can make bandung!" said my son, looking very impressed after he had the first slip of the ice blended bandung that I made for him.

"This is so creamy and yummy!" he added after finishing the last slip of his bandung with a satisfying ahhh...

Bandung? For those who don't know, it is the name of a drink popular in Singapore and Malaysia. This icy cold pink drink is typically made of evaporated milk or condensed milk flavoured with rose cordial syrup which is usually available in pink in Singapore and Malaysia.

Whenever we go to Singapore for our holidays, my son love love love attacking the refreshing and sweet ice cold bandung throughout our entire trips. As we don't drink bandung in Melbourne, I choose to shut one eye and allow my son to indulge with these sweet syrupy drinks. However, I often get reprimanded by husband for buying many cups of bandung and feel guilty after seeing my son's deeply stained extremely bright pink tongue when he finishes his intensively coloured drink.

I hate the thought of consuming too much artificial colouring. Well, it is ok to consume a little colouring sometimes but definitely not excessive... Now that I can make my own bandung with this fantastic recipe, I don't have to worry about consuming bandung with too much pink colouring!

In fact... This bandung is so good that I reckon that any bandung-loving person won't want to drink bandung from the shops anymore!!! It is so good that it will be a shame if I don't share this recipe!!!

Homemade Ice Blended Bandung

To start, I made this syrup on the day before. Ideally, this syrup is infused with pandan overnight in the fridge.

Then, combine these...

... plus these natural food colouring and rose water

Top with ice to form a total of 650ml and blended until the ice is fine and milk is slightly frothy.

Sweetie, here's your bandung!

Unlike the bandung we drink from the shops, I can assure you that this Bandung that I made is very honest being naturally creamy and yummy! It contains the least amount (or even NO!) artificial colouring and additives if you uses the right kind of ingredients to make your drink.

... but don't freak out if you can't find or buy any natural food colouring or rose water, you can use any food colouring or rose water that you can find as I promise you that you won't need to add too much of these into your drinks!

Here's the recipe that is mostly adapted from the book, Best of Malaysian Cooking by Betty Saw

Serves 2
125ml (1/2 cup) water
30g caster sugar (original was 100g! and 30g is sweet enough!!!)
2 pandan leaves, roughly shredded lengthwise and knotted
375g can evaporated milk, preferably the lighter 2% fat kind*
1 pinch salt
2-3 drops natural food colouring
2 tbsp rose water**
enough ice, to top all to a total 650ml

* Personally, I think that the original evaporated milk with 9% fat is a bit too rich for me.

** According to here, you can make your own rose water from scratch but I didn't do that. Mine is the kind that is commonly found in most supermarkets. I wouldn't say that this is the best kind with the best quality as it is mainly made of water, a good amount of rose oil and contains preservative. The better ones that I have used before expired too quickly and I decided to downgrade my choice to this. Nevertheless, it is always wise to choose rosewater that is transparent, clear and most importantly the contents must be properly labelled. Interestingly, the original recipe from Betty's book didn't use rose water at all. Instead, it makes more than 1 liter of drinks and uses 1.25L commercial ice cream soda (the sweet and fizzy kind).

In a large saucepan, bring water, sugar and pandan leaves to boil. Cook until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. When the syrup to cool to room temperature, transfer syrup (with the pandan leaves) into a cup or a deep container. Cover the cup or container. Leave pandan leaves to infuse in the syrup in the fridge for at least 4 hrs or preferably overnight.

Remove and discard pandan leaves. Combine syrup with the rest of the ingredient and use a blender to process until the ice are finely crushed. Serve and enjoy immediately!

Enjoy this lovely summery drink.
Please support me and like me at Facebook...