Easy Homemade White Rabbit Candy Recipe

What if I told you that you can make everyone’s favorite Chinese white rabbit candy at home with just five ingredients? And you don’t even have to turn on the stove or oven? It’s truly that simple, and I think it’s tastes even better than the original. Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links.

I know it sounds too good to be true, but White Rabbit Candy really is easy to make at home. It’s a NO COOK recipe with only FIVE ingredients! And this is not one of those “hack” recipes that are easy but end up being an obvious counterfeit in flavor and appearance. These homemade milky candies taste really good. Maybe even better than the original? Obviously I did have to make some ingredient substitutions and changes to technique, since we don’t have commercial factories in our home kitchens, so if you’d like to read more about the details on the differences in this recipe, the blog post below will explain all that. Otherwise, click that jump to recipe button and get started.

What is White Rabbit Creamy Candy?

I’m guessing that if you’ve found this page you already know what White Rabbit Candy is, but in case you need a little primer, White Rabbit Candy is a super popular, super nostalgic childhood sweet for Chinese people all around the world. If you’re American, think of M&Ms, Skittles, or Starburst – the way these candies are iconic and part of growing up is pretty much what White Rabbit Candy is for those involved in Chinese culture.

These candies are cylinder shaped, liked Tootsie Rolls, and come individually wrapped with the iconic blue and red bunny logo. They’re somewhat hard at room temperature but become soft and chewy once in your mouth, similar to Starburst or other sticky candies. 

Unlike Starburst, however, these chewy candies have a milky flavor! I feel like milk flavored candies aren’t super popular in America, but they’re fairly common in Asia. Japan has their own iconic brand of chewy texture milk candies, aptly named “Milky.”

What makes these white candies very unique, though, is that they come in an edible rice paper wrapping. When you unwrap the wax paper wrapper with the bunny design, you’ll notice a thin film around the candy. You can eat it! As soon as you put it on your tongue, it melts. I always thought it was so weird as a kid, eating paper, but it was also part of the allure.

White Rabbit Candy Ingredients

Here are the official ingredients listed on the back of the packaging for White Rabbit Candy:

• Liquid Maltose
• White Granulated Sugar
• Whole Milk Powder
• Butter
• Food Additive (Gelatin, Vanillin)
• Edible Glutinous Rice Paper (Corn Starch, Cassava Starch, Water, Glyceryl Monostearate)

I’m not crazy enough (yet) to attempt making the edible rice paper at home, so I opted out of that ingredient. Otherwise, here are the five ingredients in my recipe:

• Melted Butter
• Granulated sugar
• Maltose 
• Whole milk powder 
• Vanilla extract

You can see I substituted vanilla extract for the vanilla, but other than that, the only ingredient I omitted was the gelatin. The gelatin probably helps keep the candy more firm at room temperature and adds to shelf life, but adding it into the recipe makes it more complicated than I’m willing to attempt. So my version is a little bit softer and won’t last as long, but I think it’s worth the trade-off.

By the way, I bought my whole milk powder at Costco Canada, but you can generally find it in the baking aisle of most grocery stores. If not, there’s always Amazon, but it’s more expensive.

About Maltose

If you’ve perused the ingredient list, you may have some questions about maltose, which is the only ingredient not super common in American kitchens. Maltose is, however, pretty common in Chinese baking. It’s a sweet syrup, sort of like corn syrup, but made from rice starch. It’s extremely viscous, much more thick than honey, and almost solid at room temperature, which makes it good for making these chewy candies. Maltose becomes much more pliable and liquidy when heated up.

Maltose is used in Chinese baking, like with mooncakes, and also in glazes for meats. You can substitute maltose for the honey in my char siu recipe or my Phoenix Bakery Butterfly recipe.

Maltose Substitutions

Maltose can be pretty easily found in Chinese grocery stores and even on Amazon. It’s fairly inexpensive, more so if you buy in person rather than online. However, if you can’t find it or don’t want to pick it up, you can substitute honey for the maltose. Because honey is much softer than maltose at room temperature, your candies will be softer as well. I recommend keeping them in the fridge in that case. I also recommend omitting the granulated sugar, since honey is much sweeter than maltose. I have made these candies with honey, and I have to say, the additional floral notes from the honey give it a nice flavor!

How to Make White Rabbit Candy At Home

Get this, are you ready? You’re going to mix all your ingredients together, roll it into a long rope or snake, and slice it into candies.

That’s it!! It’s so easy even preschoolers can do it.

Actually, my preschooler DID do it. 

Turns out White Rabbit Candies are really similar to a Japanese candy called chitose ame, which is a traditional candy made for a holiday in November. My daughter’s preschool class makes these white, chewy milk candies every year. I used this same technique to make the White Rabbit Candies, et voila! So easy and such a fun family activity.

How to Wrap Sticky Candies

The only tricky part of this recipe may be wrapping each candy individually in plastic wrap. If you don’t, there’s a chance that they’ll all stick and lump together, especially if you live in a hot, humid climate.

Want to know my trick, though? I wrap them sort of similar to how I make candy leis. I line up a bunch on a plastic wrap, leaving space in between. Then I roll it into a tube. Cut in between each candy and twist the ends.

Of course, if you wanted, you could tie ribbons in between instead of cutting and you’d get a White Rabbit Candy lei. Not great for outdoor ceremonies in the heat, though. Very melty. 

What to Do With White Rabbit Candy?

These candies make great gifts if you put them in little snack bags. You could also stick them in your red envelopes for Lunar New Year. Making these candies is a great family activity as well for Chinese holidays, even though the candies themselves are not necessarily associated with any particular holiday.

Speaking of which, I actually have a Lunar New Year lesson plan for preschool to elementary aged students. I used to be a school speech therapist, so you know.. can’t help myself sometimes.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recipe! If you do, please give me a comment below and check out some of these other recipes you may like:

• Toasted Milk Powder Cookies
• Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treats
• Furikake Chex Mix
• Chinese Bakery Sponge Cake