Kyauk Kyaw, Two-Layer Coconut Jelly

Kyauk kyaw — the name means something like stone jelly — is the sweet that ends more Yangon meals than any cake: a firm, snapping jelly of agar-agar that performs a small magic trick as it cools, separating itself into a snowy coconut-cream layer above a clear amber one. Nobody layers it by hand. You pour once, you leave it alone, and physics does the pastry work — the coconut fat rises through the still-liquid jelly and the whole thing sets in two strata, ready to be cut into diamonds.

The agar itself is kyauk pwint, "stone flower," a seaweed gathered off Myanmar's long coast, and the dessert is city food of the colonial era — sold from trays and teahouse counters in a port town that loved anything cool and firm in the heat. In Yangon it is especially beloved of the Burmese Muslim community, appearing by the trayful at Eid alongside other festival sweets; like so much of the city's food, it belongs to one community's table and everyone's appetite.

There is almost no technique to it, which is why the two failures sting: agar not fully dissolved, which never sets properly, and lean coconut milk, which refuses to layer. Boil the agar a full five minutes until the liquid is glassy, buy the richest coconut milk on the shelf, and pour the pan somewhere it will not be jostled. An hour later you have the coolest thing in the kitchen — in both senses your grandmother would approve of.