Coconut Sticky Rice Cakes / Palitaw

I remember when my aunt would make this for us with freshly grated coconut and ground glutinous rice dough from the wet market. It's a very popular afternoon snack in the Philippines with only four ingredients and very easy to make.

Palitaw means to float, because it floats in the water once it's cooked hence the name. The consistency is similar to mochi but instead of having a filling, it's coated with coconut flavors.

Fresh grated coconut is the best if you can get your hands on it. Unfortunately I couldn't find any, but I found a substitute in the supermarket, moist coconut flakes. It's already sweetened so you can go easy with the sugar.

Makes 8 pieces.

• 1 cup Glutinous rice flour
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 cup Freshly grated coconut or moist coconut flakes
• 1 Tablespoon Coconut sugar

To make the rice cake, put the glutinous rice flour in a bowl and make a well in the center. Pour in the water and mix. After which, knead dough in the bowl until it's smooth. Kneading just takes about 5 minutes.

After kneading, take one tablespoon of each dough and form into balls. Set this aside and boil a pot of water. once it's boiling, take a dough ball and gently pinch with your fingers to form a flat circular shape. The thickness is about 5 mm. Then put the cake in the boiling water. You can put it one at a time or several at a time as long as the cakes are not touching each other to prevent sticking. Once it floats, take a slotted spoon and remove the cake from the pot and put it on a plate with the grated coconut. Use a fork to cover it with the coconut then arrange on a serving platter. Sprinkle with coconut sugar on top.

Enjoy!