Indonesian Delicacy Recipe part 2: KLEPON!

Indonesian Delicacy Recipe part 2: KLEPON!

Klepon is an Indonesian dessert made with rice flour, pandan leaf, and brown palm sugar. It is my favorite dessert snack that I usually eat on Sunday morning when I go to the traditional market with my parents! Klepon look like green mochi balls with shredded coconut on the surface. If you know Swedish cakes, klepon look like the hybrid between princesstårta and kokosbollar!

*Fun fact: Klepon is a bite-sized dessert and it explodes with oozing melted brown sugar when you eat it! And, again! This is a vegan recipe where there is no dairy used!

Ingredients for 16 balls:
300gr - glutenous rice flour
100gr - regular rice flour
100gr - all purpose flour
60gr - pandan custard powder
50gr - sugar
100gr - brown palm sugar (if you found the solid one, great! Otherwise, use the regular brown sugar, add a bit of water and heat it up while stirring until it becomes a bit sticky. Remove from heat and let it cool until crystalized/solidified).
Warm water
150gr - dried shredded coconut

*in the original recipe, we use pandan instead of pandan powder, but we cannot find it here in Sweden. Pandan leaf gives a sweet aroma, sweeter than vanilla. It also gives the green color. However, many people uses additional green food coloring to make it more vibrant. I personally don't like adding more food coloring.

Glutenous rice flour is the one in the middle with the green Chinese character, while the regular rice flour is the blue one.

Thai custard mix pandan flavour as a substitute of the pandan leaf. Still tastes good tho!

Method:

Use a strainer or a double boiler to heat the dried shredded coconut over boiling water. This step is to make the coconut softer and not so sharp. Add a little bit of salt and mix. Set it aside.

In a large bowl, mix glutenous rice flour, regular rice flour, and all purpose flour with a spatula.
Add pandan custard powder and sugar, mix again.
Wash your hands and dry them.
Pour warm water little by little to the flour mix and use your hands to mix them.
Add water again until everything is mixed and becomes one ball/dough.
The dough should not be runny at all. It should be dense with just a little bit of stickyness on the surface.
Divide dough into 2 pieces, then 4, 8, 16.

Sprinkle some flour into a baking tray or any clean flat surface. You can also use baking paper.

Prepare the sticky brown sugar and a teaspoon.
Make the dough into a ball, then press the middle so it creates a crate.
Then take the sticky brown sugar with the tip of the teaspoon. It shouldn't be that big.
Put the brown sugar inside the crate and close the dough and roll it into a ball again.
Repeat the step with the next ball. Make sure that the ball does not have any holes to avoid leaking brown sugar.

In a large pot, boil 1 liter of water.
Put the balls into the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes until it floats.
Strain the balls and roll them over the shredded coconut.
Klepon is ready to be served!

My version of Klepon, not too green, but still very good!

Let me know if you try one of these recipe and I hope you'll like it!

Happy cooking, and good luck!