So whenever I would visit Taiwan, one of my absolute favorite things to eat was shaved ice(also called “tsuabing” in Mandarin). Fluffy crystals of ice with all sorts of toppings, but typically, some sort of mochi or sweet potato ball, condensed milk, red beans, strawberries, and if I felt especially fat, pudding. Almost every Asian country has a variation on this dessert. The Philippines has halo-halo, Japan has kakigori, and Korea has bingsu. Bingsu is one of my personal favorites. As a frequent goer of Café Bene, I used to get the bingsu with misugaru, red bean, and mochi all the time. It was like an Asian PB&J in the flavor profile. Nutty, sweet, chewy, crunchy, creamy, just a good ole time on your taste buds. And I figured that would be so perfect inside of a cake. So you might be wondering, why would I make something Korean as opposed to Taiwanese/Chinese? And my answer to that is simple. Because I can. Just because I am of one ethnicity doesn’t mean I’m limited to that one style of cooking. Plus, I’ve eaten a lot more bingsu than tsuabing here in L.A.(which makes sense, given our enormous Korean population), so I felt like it was more appropriate to make this in homage to more recent dessert-memories of eating shaved ice.

For the layers, we have misugaru(a Korean 7-grain blend) chiffon with kuromitsu(Japanese dark sugar syrup), a red bean cheesecake cream, a layer of shaved condensed milk jelly, and topped with a dusting of misugaru, and almond shavings to give it that bingsu finish. The coolest components in this dessert(I know I shouldn’t be playing favorites but whatever) would be the shaved milk jelly, just because it’s a milk jelly I froze solid and shaved to resemble shaved ice, and the red bean cheesecake cream, since it’s so simple to make! The beautiful thing about misugaru is that despite being made of a ton of grains, none of them have gluten in them.

For the misugaru chiffon:
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup canola oil
a pinch of salt
6 egg whites
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup misugaru powder
1 tspn baking powder

Whip egg yolks with oil and salt until combined. Whip egg whites with sugar and vanilla to stiff peaks. Sift the flour with misugaru and baking powder. Fold the three together to form your cake batter. Pour into a lined half-sheet pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes. Allow the cake to cool slightly before rolling up along the longer side(you want a wide and short log, not a thin and long one), and allow that to cool to room temperature before unrolling.

For the shaved milk jelly:
1/2 cup soy milk
a pinch of salt
1 tspn agar agar

Heat everything together until the agar is fully dissolved into the milk. Pour into a shallow, heat-proof container. Freeze until solid, about 2 hours. Scrape with a fork and keep frozen for easier transportation when it comes time to plating.

For the red bean cheesecake cream:
8 oz cream cheese
6 oz sweetened fine red bean paste
a pinch of salt

Mix together until light and airy.

To garnish:
Misugaru or injeolmi powder
Shaved almonds

To assemble, spoon the cheesecake cream into the cake and re-roll it. Top with the milk jelly shavings, a dusting of misugaru or injeolmi powder, and shaved almonds to finish.