Klepon

This is so much fun to make: Indonesian Klepon. The first time I laid eyes on those green balls I hesitated to taste one. Is it spicy, savory or sweet? The surprise was a sweet one!Klepon is a palm sugar, rice dough snack. You could say it is an Indonesian mochi. Colored and flavored with pandan leaf. Time to make

Klepon is a palm sugar, rice dough snack. You could say it is an Indonesian mochi. Colored and flavored with pandan leaf. Time to make klepon myself. It turns out to be quite easy.

Within 45 minutes I have, warm, green, coconut spheres on a plate, ready to eat.

Ingredients (for about 20 balls in 30-45 minutes)

200 grams of ketan flour (glutinous/sticky rice flour )
180 ml water
few drops of pandan extract
75 grams gula jawa (palm sugar), chopped in 1 cm dices
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt

Parchment paper

Make dough

I mix flour and water with the pandan extract by hand until it’s a smooth dough; beautifully green and elastic.

It’s a bit sticky and smells great. If it is too sticky (you cannot form nice balls) add some more sticky rice flour.

Meanwhile, I bring a medium pan with water to the boil.

Javanese sugar or gula jawa

The gula jawa (palm sugar) is sold in hard, round slices. With a kitchen knife, I chop the sugar bricks carefully into chunks of 1 by 1 cm.

You can grate the sugar too, but I love to fill my klepon with bigger chunks. This way deep inside your klepon, in the center of the melted gula jawa, a hard core of sweet palm sugar gives the klepon that extra bite and surprise.

Walnut size

I make balls the size of a walnut and place the palm sugar chunk in the core. Make sure you cover the sugar up nicely, otherwise it will leak.

It is not important that your klepon is a perfect sphere. They will grow a bit bigger and rounder in the boiling water.

How to place in the water

Place your klepon on a spade and lower it slowly into the water. Shake a bit to release it. If you throw the balls in, they can get stuck to the bottom of the pan and will break.

Float

The klepon is done, when they float to the surface. For a more softer core, leave them in for about a minute extra.

Coconut layer

Let them cool down a bit and roll them through the coconut. I have some leftover roasted shredded coconut so I mix that through the white coconut flakes too. It looks nice ;-).

If the klepon sticks too much when handling use fingers that are dipped into coconut flakes ;-).

How to preserve

They are best eaten warm but cooled they are lovely as well. They can be frozen too. Works great as a small present in a pretty box.

Klepon work great as a small present in a pretty box ;-). The picture below are the 50+ klepon I made for my nieces 30th birthday. Enak sekali!