Nyob Zoo!
Here’s to another sesame ball flavor of the year! I wanted to share with you the pandan coconut sesame balls recipe I made for my family in Thailand. These are crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside and has a slight pandan essence at the end. They’re texturally fun from the shredded coconut from within and the crispy sesame seeds from the outside. It’s really easy to make so I hope you can give it a try! Happy cooking! 🙂
Main Ingredients
*I like to use a cooking scale to measure my ingredients (especially the dry) for best results*
The dough consist of glutinous rice flour which gives it the chew and rice flour which gives the dough structure. I add in mashed potato to give the dough some tenderness. Baking powder is added to give some leavening along with salt and sugar for flavor. Using fresh pandan leaves gives the sesame balls a nice subtle pandan flavor along with the nice light green color. Add in some fresh shredded coconut for extra texture. 
Blend the chopped pandan leaves in with some water. Strain well before adding it to the dry 
Mix the dough well. You’ll know you mixed it well when the dough doesn’t stick to your hands. Take about 1/2 a TBSP of dough and roll it into a ball and place it into a bowl of RAW sesame seeds. Coat it well and shake off any excess seeds. Use RAW sesame seeds since they will cook and toast as you fry them.
You can use black seasme seeds too! Once they’re all done, let’s fry!
NOTE: If you don’t want to use pandan leaves, you can add 1 tsp of pandan extract to 1 cup of water and mix well. This will be your alternative liquid base. The difference with this is your dough will be a lot greener since pandan flavoring does contain food coloring. It doesn’t have that nice natural light green color that pandan leaves gives.
Fry until golden brown. Sesame balls usually takes about 6-8 minutes to cook. They will float to the top when they’re ready. Cook until golden brown and crispy. 
Place it into a colander and let it rest for 5 minutes before enjoying. Sesame balls are best enjoyed when they’re still crispy! 
If you have any leftover FRIED ones, freeze them! If you can’t finish the fried sesame balls, allow them to cool before placing them into a ziploc bag and into the freezer. They freeze well already COOKED/FRIED. DO NOT FREEZE the RAW DOUGH since the raw dough will crack and dry up in the freezer. They will not fry well. Freeze the FRIED & COOKED sesame balls only. When you want to enjoy them, take them out and just quickly AIRFRY them for 5 minutes at 350’F to get them crispy again. Airfying is the best method to reheat them.
ENJOY! You can dip the sesame balls in some sweetened condensed milk for some extra sweetness if you like! 
Light green color from the pandan leaves 🙂
Happy Cooking!
-Cindy Her
Pandan Coconut Sesame Balls
Ingredients
- 251 grams glutinous rice flour
- 60 grams rice flour
- 4 grams baking powder (1 tsp)
- 4 grams salt
- 80 grams sugar
- 64 grams plain mashed potato
- 150 grams fresh shredded coconut (about 3/4 to 1 cup)
- 100 grams pandan leaves (sliced)
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup raw white sesame seeds (or you can do half white and half black sesame seeds)
- Vegetable oil to fry
- Sweetened condensed milk (to dip)
Instructions
- Peel and roughly diced 1 small rustic potato and boil it in water until it has softened. Drain the water and mash the potato chunks well. Measure out 64g to be used later.
- In a blender, add in the cut pandan leaves and 1 cup of water. Blend until the pandan leaves are blended finely. Pour the blended pandan water over a cheesecloth that's been placed over a sieve and a bowl. Squeeze out as much pandan water as you can. Discard the blended leaves and reserve the pandan water. Save 1 cup of the pandan water for the batter.
- In a bowl, add in the glutinous rice flour, rice flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. With a whisk, mix well. Then add in the mashed potato, shredded coconut, and the 1 cup pandan water. Knead well until you get a pliable dough. Set aside.
- Place 1/2 cup of RAW white sesame seeds into a bowl. Set this next to the pandan dough.
- Grab about 1/2 TBSP of the dough and roll it into a ball. You can make it as little or as big as you want. So grab as much dough as you feel. Place the ball into the bowl of sesame seeds. Roll it around until it has fully been covered. Shake off any excess seeds and place onto a plate or sheet tray. Repeat until all the dough is used up.
- Heat enough vegetable oil in a deep pan to 325' F and gently place half of the rolled up balls into the pan. Gently move them around so they don't stick to the bottom and let it fry for at least 6-8 minutes. You'll know they're done when they turn golden brown and have floated to the top. Remove them with a spider onto a colander and finish frying the other half.
- Once all the balls are fried, let it cool for 5 minutes before enjoying them! They're best when they're still crispy.
- If you want, you can dip these sesame balls in some sweetened condensed milk 🙂
4 comments
I’m excited to try this! I was just wondering if I can substitute the fresh pandan for the pandan leaf extract in the can?
if i don’t have fresh pandan leaves, can i use extract?
I made some but they don’t hold their shape after cooled. Do I add more baking powder to make them hold their shape?
They probably need to be fried a little longer to get it crispy on the outside.