In honor of Mother’s Day,
we’re sharing a very special recipe:
Red Bean Popsicles,
taught by Mommy Lau for the very first time.
Every summer, my mom would make a bunch of these,
and every day, I’d devour these one by one
after hours of playing in the pool.
They still taste just as good as I remember,
but they hit especially differently now that I’m a dad,
so I also wanted to take some time to honor
two of the most important women in my life.
First, we’ll learn how to prepare the red beans.
Happy Mother's Day!
This is one of my favorite snacks: Red Bean Popsicles!
I've eaten red bean popsicles since I was very, very little.
Aww...
And you make it for Randy.
Ever since he was 3 years old,
I've made it for Randy.
Yeah, so you can make these Red Bean Popsicles
for the babies!
For Hong Doy, yeah.
It's perfect for a summer snack.
So first, first step.
We use red beans.
Usually we go to Chinatown to buy red beans.
You can also buy these red beans in Safeway and Lucky.
We’ll measure out 4 oz of red beans.
Take a look.
Yeah.
You want to see if any of them are open.
Oh, you found one.
Bad bean!
Since it's broken, we throw it away.
Only the best for our children!
If the beans are broken, the quality is changed.
It might get moldy easily,
or bacteria can get inside.
So we want beans that still have all the skin on,
the shells on.
After picking out the broken beans,
we’ll wash the rest of the red beans.
We have to clean the beans for the next step.
Just use your hands to stir them a few times.
Just like rice.
Rinse them three times.
I like to do it just like that.
Ooh!
Mix them from the bottom to the top
to make sure you're washing all the beans.
Okay, done!
Now, we’ll take out the red beans by hand
or just use a colander to drain the water.
Now, we'll get 16 oz of water.
Does it matter that it's 16 oz of water?
No, this step is not strict.
As long as you cover the beans.
When you soak the beans, the beans expand
and they become more soft.
They'll be easier to boil and to blend.
Do you keep it in the fridge or keep it out (as they soak)?
Just room temperature.
Okay.
Do you ever soak it in hot water or should it be cold water?
Cold water.
If you soak the beans in hot water,
sometimes the beans will break.
It's not easy for the whole beans to soften in hot water.
Soak at room temperature on the counter,
put it in the kitchen somewhere,
then go to sleep.
I usually don't count how many hours.
In the morning, I make the popsicles.
We’ll let the red beans soak for 6-8 hours or overnight
at room temperature.
We have beans ready?
Wow!
That's the difference!
Look at the two sizes.
This is the bean we just washed.
This is a bean that's been soaking for 8 hours.
So you can see the difference, right?
The color's different,
Use your thumb and index finger to push on it.
It's broken.
So after we soak the beans,
we'll wash them once more time before we do the next step.
Okay, let's do it!
Now while Kat rinses and drains the soaked beans one more time,
we’ll check in on how my mom’s feeling
with her first time teaching on the channel.
How do you like this, Mommy, are we doing a good job?
You're doing great, Mom!
I hope so!
Are you having fun?
You're doing really good!
I hope so.
Now, the next step is to boil the beans.
Put all the beans inside, just pour them in.
It's okay, you don't have to wait for the water first?
No, because we haven't turned on the heat yet.
For 4 oz of beans, we use 16 oz of water.
You can use hot water or cold water, either is fine.
To save time, we'll use hot water.
We’ll add two cups of hot water here to save time when boiling it.
Put the cover on.
Turn the heat on high.
Just go?
Yeah.
We want it to come up to boiling.
"Can you use mung beans?"
Yes, but the name wouldn't be Red Bean Popsicles!
Yes.
Boiling, okay!
It's boiling, so we can
lower the temperature.
When it boils, we’ll lower the heat to medium low.
You can see it's simmering like this.
Very light and slow bubbles.
Stir it, then cover again.
Just stir it around.
Now, we’ll give it a quick stir, then cover the pot.
Okay, cover it.
For another couple of minutes,
make sure that it's still mildly bubbling in the pot.
We want it to slowly cook.
Slow cooking makes the beans more soft
and break the skin, the shell.
If it's too fast, the water evaporates, or what will happen?
Then you need to add more water when you blend the beans.
I see.
Turn the heat even lower.
Even lower?
How do we know if it needs more time or less time?
Usually, after one hour of slow boiling,
it's soft enough.
Since we have to do more steps with the blender,
we don't really have to care if it's still hot.
While the beans simmer…
this is why my mom is such a boss.
After our family’s restaurant burned down,
instead of sulking,
my mom dove headfirst into a dream
that she’d put off for years—
becoming a nurse assistant.
The only problem was,
not only did she not speak English,
she needed to become fluent in medical jargon.
She did have a degree in nursing from her days in China,
but the degree was worthless in the United States.
So on top of raising two kids,
every day she locked herself in our bathroom
to force herself to study.
She chased after buses
to make it to her trainings and certifications.
And after all was said and done,
she graduated from her program at the top of her class.
She went on to devote over 30 years
of her career as a nursing assistant,
working night shifts,
and often, after just a few hours of sleep, the dayshifts too.
Rightfully so, when we talk about immigrant parents,
we often honor their intense work ethic.
But my mom’s story has another level to it—
she never questions her ability
to do anything she sets her mind to.
And this...
is where I get my sense of bravery from.
Because if my mom,
a Chinese immigrant who came here with pennies to her name,
can throw herself into a new career,
and find success in every sense of the word,
there’s nothing I can’t do.
And as much as she would have preferred
me getting a proper engineering job at Google or Meta,
she was the one who gave us all the green light
to try out this crazy YouTube idea I had.
So Mom, thank you for everything
and Happy Mother's Day!
After simmering on low for an hour,
we can add some more elements to our mixture.
Open it.
Now we need to add brown sugar.
Okay.
I'll let you stir it around.
We'll put 8 oz of sugar
because for the Red Bean Popsicles,
it tastes better when it's more sweet!
If you're worried about eating too much sugar,
you can always adjust the amount of sugar.
Francesca from Patreon asked,
"What kind of sweeteners fit for Red Bean Popsicles?"
You can use any sugar that you prefer.
But brown sugar is the number 1 choice,
its taste matches best with red bean.
"Can you make this sugar-free?"
Sugar-free, yes,
but if you don't add sugar, the water ratio needs to be higher.
After the sugar melts into the soup,
it produces water.
The ratio for this popsicle, yes.
If you choose to omit the sugar entirely,
my mom suggests adding an extra 6-7 fl oz of water.
Okay, now we can cover it again.
After we put the brown sugar in, we wait for two minutes.
Cook at a low temperature.
This time, we're just waiting for the brown sugar
to completely melt into the soup.
After than, we can add the tapioca starch.
After we add it, we turn off the stove.
While the brown sugar dissolves,
we’ll create our slurry by mixing tapioca starch and water.
1.5 tbsp,
and mix it with 1.5 tbsp of water.
After mixing, we’ll pour in the slurry.
Pour it in like this.
After you put it in, stir it around.
It's already adding thickness.
The reason we put this starch in
is because it makes the popsicle more smooth.
You can use a different kind of starch if you want,
like cornstarch or potato starch.
Shirley from the Canto Cooking Club asked,
"Is this essentially like Red Bean Soup?"
You could say it's Red Bean Soup,
but it's thicker than Red Bean Soup.
If you only have soup, you can't make the popsicles.
You have to add some other stuff.
Now, you can see
it's become a little bit thicker,
so we can turn off the stove.
Okay. All done?
Yeah, all done!
After the soup has thickened from the slurry,
or about 1 minute of mixing,
we can turn off the heat.
We're almost finally going to make the popsicles.
We'll let the juice (soup) cool down first.
Usually, probably in an hour.
Okay, an hour?
Cath from Patreon asked,
"Can you use cooked red beans in a can
that are already like paste
to make these?"
Yes!
Keep the sugar (as is),
and if you can add milk
or condensed milk, or coconut milk, and water.
See how much water you need.
Sometimes if it's a little too thick, it's still okay.
If it's too thin, it's just like eating ice.
After the soup has cooled down completely
or after about an hour,
we can continue adding our ingredients.
This red bean soup was very hot before.
Now, after an hour, it has completely cooled down.
We need to add a few more things.
8 oz of milk.
And 6 oz of coconut milk.
We’ll add our 1 cup of milk into the soup.
So 8 oz of that,
and then this one, 6?
6 oz.
Shake before you use it.
The water is at the top,
and the stuff is at the bottom,
so you have to shake up the coconut stuff.
Then we’ll measure out 6 fl oz of coconut milk and add it.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
Now we’ll stir to mix in the regular and coconut milk.
If you don’t like coconut flavor, you can replace the coconut milk
with the same amount of regular or condensed milk.
Usually, if I use condensed milk,
I use the condensed milk with no added sugar.
Oh, okay.
No sugar, because I already have brown sugar in here,
I don't need more sugar.
Look how good that looks!
Or if you really like coconut milk,
you can add 8 oz coconut milk,
6 oz of regular milk.
Yeah.
You can use 2% milk,
1% or 2% milk,
but I don't recommend nonfat milk.
It's too thin.
"Can you make it without milk?"
Yes.
You don't have to add milk if you don't want it.
Just add more water.
You can do different kind of nut milks, too, right?
Yeah, you can do almond milk,
you can do oat milk,
and soybean milk,
they're all okay.
Now, everything in the pot is already mixed,
so now we're going to blend the red beans very well,
like for 30 seconds.
On medium speed.
Okay.
Wow!
Okay, put the lid on.
Okay.
"Can you do this with whole red beans,
without grinding them up?"
Yeah.
You know what I would do?
For some soups,
when you want it both ways,
say like a butternut squash or something like that,
you want it half creamy,
but you still want chunks,
you blend half of it.
Then you take the other half and mix in those chunks.
You can have a ratio of mixed and blended.
Good job!
We can check to see if it's completely mixed.
You're just trying to see if there's any beans?
Like all these specks, that's okay?
That's okay, yeah.
I think it's good now.
Pour some in here first.
To make pouring into the molds easier,
we’ll pour first into our measuring cup with a spout.
I really like this popsicle mold.
It's in individual shapes,
so you can take them out one by one.
And also, the stick inside is very long.
It's long here and long here,
easy for kids to hold.
Now we can take all the sticks out.
The line here
can tell you how much to fill it.
Fill it up to this line.
So it's very easy to use.
Now we’ll carefully pour our red bean mixture
into our popsicle molds.
Okay. Good?
That's too much, I should drink it.
We still have a half cup left.
And this one, how much total do we have?
1.5 cup.
I think we can make four more.
I'm going to put the cover on.
If you have a mold with built in sticks, we’ll put them on now.
We can show you, this is a wooden stick popsicle.
If you don't have a mold with the stick like this one,
then we need to use a wooden stick to make the popsicle.
After we fill it with juice inside,
you can't put the stick in.
because it'll float around.
So we put this in the freezer for 1 hour,
then take it out.
After 1 hour, the juice will become harder.
So you can put the stick in the center
without it floating around.
Now, we've done this step, right?
We've put it in.
So the next step is the freezer.
Put it in the freezer for at least 6 hours.
In 8 hours, it'll be totally ready.
While the popsicles form in the freezer,
this is why I love Kat so much.
"I'm a good brother!"
I'm a good brother.
Are you a good basketball player?
Yeah, I'm a good basketball player!
You are!
Are you smart?
Yeah!
Are you incredible?
Yeah!
"I'm incredible!"
I'm incredible.
You are incredible!
This is Cam, not even 3 years old,
repeating the positive affirmations
that Kat says to him every single day.
This is just who she is.
Even in spite of a language barrier,
she goes out of her way to compliment my dad on his cooking
or how fit he is as an 80 year old.
She has hour-long talks with my mom,
which almost always veer into Kat praising my mom
on her ability to save and buy two houses,
and how Kat’s becoming more and more like her.
And even in the face of the financial instability
over our last 10 years of entrepreneurship,
Kat’s always encouraged me to keep going.
She’s a big part of why Made With Lau exists in the first place,
which we came up with during one of our quarterly retreats,
a 12 year tradition where we take a weekend
to celebrate, reflect, and set goals.
And one day, I imagine when our kids are old enough,
they’ll join in our retreats too.
It’s not easy being a full-time mom,
but with our kids, somehow she finds the energy
to dance and be goofy,
to advocate for them
and line up every opportunity for them to flourish,
and to affirm everything that’s beautiful about them.
So Kat, I just want to say thank you
for being an amazing mom, an amazing wife,
and Happy Mother’s Day.
Put it in the freezer for at least 6 hours.
In 8 hours, they'll be totally ready.
It's ready to take out, mama!
Ready.
After at least 6-8 hours in the freezer,
we can try our finished popsicles.
Beautiful popsicles for us!
Next step, we have to detach the popsicles.
What I'm doing is using boiling water,
just pour it over the popsicle,
and thaw it.
You can also just let it thaw at room temperature for 5 minutes
until it can be released from the mold.
I see it breaking, look.
This is if you can't wait, huh?
If you're like, I need a popsicle NOW!
I want a popsicle now!
You want to try it?
You try it!
You should try it, you worked so hard!
Now, the moment of truth.
That's good.
You eat it too.
That's good.
You will like it.
When I was very, very little,
in elementary school,
we hardly ever had snacks,
but when my mother gave me four pennies,
I'd always go to the ice shop
to get a red bean popsicle.
Wow!
In Cantonese, it's hung dau syut tiu.
In Mandarin, it's hong dou bing bang.
In English, it's Red Bean Popsicle.
I'll be very happy to see all the mothers loving this popsicle,
make it for their children, make it for their family,
make it for themselves!
And then have a happy, happy snacktime!
Especially in the summer!
And the fathers can also make it for the mothers.
Yes!
You will love it!
Always wanted to have this recipe.
Cheers!
Thanks Mom!
Cheers!
Good!
Tastes like my childhood.
Happy Mother's Day!
Thank you, Happy Mother's Day!
I love you!
I love you, too!
Popsicles!
Cam, this is like my childhood!
Oh my gosh!
Do you like the popsicle?
Mommy made it for you for Mother's Day.
Thank you!
Can you say, "Happy Mother's Day!"
Happy Mother's Day!
Wow!