The most common Thai dessert foreigners know might be mango sticky rice, and that’s it. But, there are actually many others that are very tasty and easily found almost everywhere. One of the most famous street desserts is called khnom kroak or they easiest way to explain it could be ‘the Thai coconut-rice pancake. The size of this pancake usually is a lot smaller than the normal western pancake and the ingredients are also different too.
Thai pancake can be found in most local markets. Or, street vendors make this type of dessert by putting the pan and stove on their motorbikes adapting them as the mobile shops. One can notice by looking at the metal pan with small sinking parts/ little pans in one big pan, similar as the one used for making tokoyaki.
The 2 main ingredients are rice flour and coconut milk. There are 2 main flavors choose depending on the preference of the customers; sweet and salty. If it is the sweet ones, sugar will be added into the 2 main ingredients or sometimes the pancake maker add sugar later on top of the cooked pancakes before serving them to his/ her customers. For the salty ones, a bit of salt is added into the ingredients that has been making as the thick liquid by mixing with the water.
Once the pan is heated up, the seller would scoop up the ready mixed liquid using the round spoon and fill it in each small part in the big pan. It takes around 4-5 minutes to be well cooked. It will be a bit crunchy on the outside and soft custardy inside the little pancakes, with very nice smell. Usually for the salty pancakes the topping is cut green onion leaves whereas the sweet ones have different toppings such as cooked taro or corns. When taken out from the pan, 2 little pancakes will be paired up, that’s the traditional and complete way to make Thai pancake.
Usually fresh banana leaves are used as the plates to put the pancakes that are sold to people. It costs around 10-20 baht for a plate that has between 5-8 pairs of those little pancakes. Customers usually pay and then walk around and eat the dessert using the small stick to pick up the pieces and put into their mouths… hmmm so yummy.