Clearspring Agar Flakes 28g

Clearspring Agar Flakes are a high quality vegetarian alternative to gelatine for making desserts, jellies and aspics.

To use, add one full tablespoon of flakes per cup of liquid, sprinkling over the liquid in a saucepan before heating. Heat without stirring, then simmer for 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the flakes dissolve. Pour into a mould and cool to set.

Clearspring Agar Flakes are traditionally made from sea plants in Japan . They have a neutral flavour and are free from any chemical bleaching or softening agents.

Today, almost all commercial agar-agar is made using sulphuric acid to dissolve the starches, and chemical bleaches and dyes to neutralise the colour and flavour of the sea plants. However, a few small craft producers, such as the Mizoguchi family who make Clearspring Agar Flakes, still use the traditional slow method.

This begins at the coast in Japan , where selected red sea plants of the Gelidium species are harvested in the autumn, sun-dried, bundled and transported to the Mizoguchi shop in the mountains of Nagano to be transformed into agar flakes during the cold winter months.

The dried sea plants are placed in a large cauldron with water and cooked for several hours to produce a thick gel that is then cooled, cut into blocks, placed on bamboo trays and set outside on the snow-covered rice paddies.

The gel blocks freeze each night, then thaw each day under the bright Japanese winter sun. After about ten days they lose all their moisture, leaving only light bars of pure agar-agar which are then simply shaved into fine flakes and packed.