Today we want to show you how to make a pretty and delicious blue jelly from butterfly pea flowers. It’s a quick and easy dessert that you can make ahead of time and serve to your guests with fancy toppings. We are sure that everyone will like it!
All you need are three simple ingredients: butterfly pea flowers, a sweetener, and a gelling agent such as agar or powdered gelatin. That’s it!
The recipe is based on the basic jelly (or jelly) dessert: sweetened and flavored water, gelled with gelatin.
We used butterfly pea flowers to make blue tea (aka blue pea tea) and sweetened it with sugar-free erythritol. Then we cooked it with agar powder and finally we let the blue jelly set in molds in the fridge.
Let’s take a quick look at these three ingredients.
Erythritol is a natural sweetener that tastes like sugar but has no calories – ideal for sugar-free desserts. But if you prefer, you can substitute sugar for erythritol in a 1:1 ratio.
Agar powder is a vegan alternative to gelatin that activates when cooked and solidifies when cooled in the fridge. If you want to use agar flakes or vegan gelatin, see our tips in the recipe below.
Butterfly Pea flowers are beautiful blue flowers found in Southeast Asia.
It is a Thai tradition to use butterfly pea flowers to make blue tea. But these wonderful flowers are used in many other recipes across Southeast Asia, such as drinks, sweets, desserts and more.
When you soak Butterfly Pea flowers in hot water or milk, they release their deep blue pigments and add a wonderful blue hue to your dishes. They taste earthy, grassy and delicately floral – similar to matcha but sweeter.
You can find dried butterfly pea flowers at your local Asian store or online. You can also buy blue pea flower powder, sometimes called “Blue Matcha”. But no matter what you can find, we’ll show you how to make the blue jelly using either dried or powdered flowers!
When ready, invert the bluepea jelly onto serving plates and garnish as desired or follow our topping ideas below. It’s a light and fresh dessert that tastes sweet and floral and looks so pretty!
And if you’re wondering what else to make with butterfly pea flowers, check out this squishy blue cake, blue pea cheesecake, and butterfly pea bubble tea. You will love them!