Bua Loy (Glutinous rice balls in coconut milk)
Bua Loy is a very common Thai dessert, easily found in both Thai street food stalls and in some Thai restaurants. It is very easy and fun to make at home especially with kids. The name literally means ‘floating lotus’ because of the way the tapioca balls will float up to the surface when they are cooked through.
In this dessert we only use natural ingredients for the color. The common colors for Bua Loy are green (from pandan leaves), blue (from butterfly pea flower), light purple (from taro) and yellow (from pumpkin). In this recipe we chose our two favorite colors orange and blue made from the ingredients we could find in Sweden. Check out our recipe for how to make this authentic Thai dessert at home, we are sure you’ll like it!
Bua Loy (Glutinous rice balls in coconut milk)
Course: DessertCuisine: Thai2-3
ServingsIngredients
A small (Ca 300g) sweet potato
1 bag glutinous rice flour
10 butterflypea flowers
150ml hot water
500ml coconut milk
100ml water
100g sugar
1 tsp salt
Instructions
- For sweet potato Bua Loy
- Peel and steam sweet potato until cooked and soft. Set aside and let it cool.
- When it’s cool enough to handle, mash it in a mixing bowl. Add around 100g of glutinous rice flour and knead it until combined.
- Add more flour when the dough is too wet, the consistency we are looking for is smooth and the dough should no longer stick in your palm.
- Wrap it in plastic and set aside when you are gonna continue with other color.
- For butterfly pea Bua Loy
- Add butterflypea flower into hot water, wait around 10 mins or until it water turns dark blue.
- In a mixing bowl, add around 100g of glutinous rice flour first, then add around 3tbsp of the blue liquid. Knead until combine.
- If the dough is too dry, adding more blue liquid. If it’s too wet, adding more flour. The consistency we are looking for is smooth and the dough should no longer stick in your palm.
- How to cook Bua Loy
- When we have the two colors dough prepared, we can start rolling them into a small ball. Be consistent with the size of the balls so that will be fully cooked at the same time.
- Prepare 2 pots, in the first medium pot, add in coconut milk and 100ml water, put on medium heat. Add sugar and salt, stir until well combine. Then leave it on the stove on low heat, don’t let the coconut milk boil up.
- In another pot, add 1 liter of water, wait until it boils. Add the balls into the pot. When they are fully cooked, they will float on the top. Use mesh strainer to scoop them out and put in the coconut milk pot.
- Let it soak up coconut milk for 2 minutes and turn off the heat. Serve it warm.