In the photograph you can see I’ve served this with papaya ice cream, I’ll do the recipe for this icecream tomorrow. The balls are also served with a syrup, so it’s not strictly necessary to serve with ice cream.

Ingredients
120 gms Pumpkin
6 Tablespoons Sticky Rice Flour
1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch
50 ml Bi tua Juice
100 ml Sugar Syrup
50 ml Coconut Milk

Preparation
1. Clean and peel the pumpkin, steam for 20 minutes and leave to cool.
2. Mash the pumkin, add the sticky rice flour, cassava and mix together until thick. If the mixture if not a thick dough, add a little more rice flour.
3. Pinch off pieces and make small balls, approximately 1cm in diameter.
4. Boil a pan of water and cook the balls in the water for 3 minutes, remove and drop into cool water for 5 minutes.
5. To make the syrup, into a saucepan, take the bi-tua leaf juice, coconut milk and sugar syrup and heat to bring to the boil for 2 minutes.
6. Spoon over the pumpkin balls.

I’ve mentioned before that we like stuffed balls in Thailand! This is yet another variation of that, in this one, almond paste is used to form the sweet filling of a rice ball.

Ingredients
300 gms Ground Almonds
2 Tablespoons Warm Water
2 Tablespoons Sugar
Food Coloring
200 gms Sticky Rice Flour
1 Tablespoon Rice Flour
1 Teaspoon Cassava Starch Flour

Preparation
1. Mix the almond with the warm water and sugar. Knead until they are well mixed together. You can also use ready made marzipan. Split the mixture up into equal pieces and add the food colouring to each piece. Knead the colouring into the ball of almond paste.
2. Pinch off pieces of the paste, you should be able to make 20-30 small balls of almond paste from this mixture.
3. Mix the 3 flours (Sticky rice, Rice and Cassava) together, add a little warm water and stir to form a thick paste. You can knead the paste to make sure the water is well mixed into the flour.
4. Pinch off pieces of this paste to make enough outer coverings for each of your almond centres.
5. Take a rice ball, flatten it in your hand into a disc. Put an almond ball in the centre, fold up the edges of the disc and crimp the top together.
6. Roll the ball in the palm of your hands to smooth out the join.
7. Boil a pan of water, drop the balls into the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.
8. These are served with either ginger tea (slice ginger and boil it in water for 3-5 minutes to make ginger tea), or regular tea

Beautiful aren’t they! The outer layer is made from green tapioca beads and the inside is yellow soya & coconut. They are named after the precious peridot green crystal because they shine just like peridot. I waited for the sun to shine before photographing them.

Ingredients
100 gms Green Tapioca
100 ml Hot Water
50 gms Yellow Soya Beans ( Split Mung Bean )
100 ml Coconut Milk

To Cook:
300 gms Sugar
300 ml Water

Preparation
1. Soak the yellow soya in warm water for 1 hour.
2. Steam the soya on foil in a Thai steamer for 10 minutes.
3. Add a little coconut milk and a pinch of salt, then blend them into a paste. Only a little coconut milk is needed for flavour, don’t add too much or you’ll make the soya paste too loose.
4. Roll pieces of the yellow bean paste into small balls, approximately 1cm in diameter.
5. Put the 100ml of hot water into the green tapioca, it will become sticky. Stir it to make sure the water is well mixed in, then take pieces of the tapioca and press them into thin 4cm discs in the palm of your hand. Place one of the yellow balls in the centre and fold up the edges. After some pressing you can form it into a ball.

In this photograph you can see what they look like before they are cooked.

6. Boil 300ml of water, add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
7. Drop the balls into the boiling water and cook until the balls become almost completely clear. This can take 15-20 minutes.
7. Once they are clear, remove them with a sieve and drop into cold water. Leave the sugar syrup in the pan to cool.
8. Serve with a little of the syrup, and a little coconut milk

Inside these balls made from boiled rice flour are soft sugar caramel and coconut centres, eaten in a sweet ginger syrup.

Ingredients, Balls
100 gms Brown Sugar
50 gms Desiccated Coconut
20 gms Toasted Sesame Seeds
100 gms Sticky Rice Flour
50 gms Rice Flour
20 gms Cassava Starch
( Save some cassava starch to dust your hands with to stop the balls sticking)

Preparation, Ball
1. Into a saucepan, put 50ml water and the brown sugar and boil until the sugar becomes a very thick sticky caramel. You will need to form balls with this mixture so it cannot be too runny. Take off the heat, mix in the sesame seeds and ground coconut and leave to cool.
2. Take teaspoons of the sugar mixture out and roll them in your hands into small balls, approximately 1cm across.
3. Mix the 2 flours and starch together, mix in 50ml water and knead until it forms dough.
3. Cut the dough into small pieces approximately 30gms, and roll them in your hands. If the balls are a little sticky, dust your hands with more cassava starch.
4. Flatten the dough in your hand, place one of the sugar balls in the middle and fold up the dough so that it completely enclosed the sugar.
5. At this point you can store the balls for future eating, only cooking them when needed.
6. To cook the ball, boil a saucepan of water, drop in the balls into the boiling water. When they are cooked they will float to the surface (approximately 1 minute).
7. Eat warm in a ginger sauce.

Ingredients Ginger Sauce
20 gms Ginger Root
20 gms Lemon Grass
500 ml Water
4 Tablespoons Sugar

Preparation, Ginger Sauce
1. Boil the water, add the ginger root, lemon grass and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Add the sugar and continue simmering for 2 minutes.
3. Leave to cool a little then ladel some of the balls and sauce into a dish to eat

Today is sweet ball day! There are many desserts we have made from balls in sauce. This one is sweet balls contain kidney beans and are served in a sweet ginger sauce. In the photograph top left you can one ball I cut open.

Ingredients
100 gms Sticky Rice Flour
50 gms Rice Flour
2 Tablespoons Cassava Starch
100 ml Rose Water
50 gms Kidney Beans (Canned or Boil hard for 10 Minutes!)
100 gms Sugar
2 Tablespoons Toasted Sasame Seeds
Water for Boiling
Cool Water

Ingredients  for the Syrup
200 gms Sugar
200 ml Water

Ingredients  for Ginger Water
20 gms Ginger Root
400 ml Water

Preparation
1. Blend the kidney beans into a purée with a food processor or blender. Put the purée into a saucepan and heat over a medium heat to thicken the beans and remove some of the water. Leave to cool.
2. Mix the rice flour, starch and sticky rice flour together. Add enough of the rose water to form a dough and knead it until it is smooth and well mixed.
3. When the kidney beans a cool, pinch off pieces of kidney bean paste and roll to form 1cm balls. Then take each ball and roll it in the sesame seeds. Do this until all of the bean is used up.
4. Put a pan of water on to boil.
5. Pinch off some of the flour dough, flatten it in your hand to form a disc about 4cms across. Put a bean ball inside and fold up the edges to envelop the bean ball. Repeat until all of your bean balls are wrapped up in the flour dough.
6. Drop the balls into the boiling water, they will float to the top when cooked, it only takes a minute or two. Once they are cooked, remove them and drop them into the cool water.
7. Make a sugar syrup by placing the sugar and water in a pan and heating until the sugar is dissolved, then leave to cool.
8. To make the ginger sauce, boil water, add the chopped ginger and boil until the ginger smell is released, then remove the ginger from the water.
9. To serve, put some of the balls in a bowl, add enough syrup to sweeten it to your personal taste, then spoon enough of the warm ginger sauce over the top to drown the balls