• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Devour.Asia

Devour.Asia

Connie Veneracion explores Asian food, history and culture

  • Tea
  • Kitchen Tales
    • Pantry Staples
    • Kitchen Tools
    • Cooking Techniques
    • Food Trivia
  • Food Tales
  • Travel Tales
  • Search
  • All Recipes
    • Chinese
    • Japanese
    • Korean
    • Taiwanese
    • Thai
    • Vietnamese
    • Asian Fusion
    • Instant Noodles (Ramen)
  • Tea
  • Kitchen Tales
    • Pantry Staples
    • Kitchen Tools
    • Cooking Techniques
    • Food Trivia
  • Food Tales
  • Travel Tales
  • Pop Tales
  • About
  • Privacy
  • All Recipes
  • Chinese
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Taiwanese
  • Thai
  • Vietnamese
  • Fusion
You are here: Home / All Recipes / Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok)

Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok)

Connie Veneracion
Warorot Market in Chiang Mai is closed at night but the streets surrounding it were buzzing with fruits, flowers and food when we were there in January this year. It was from one of the food stalls there that we had our first experience of Thai coconut custard pancakes or khanom khrok (yes, it turns out that the correct spelling includes "h") as they are called by the locals.
These tiny pancakes consist of three parts — the shell which is crisp and lightly chewy at the same time, the custard filling, and the topping which can be sweet corn, scallions or tiny cubes of cooked taro. In Chiang Mai, we tried the ones with corn and scallion toppings, they were lovely but, for me, it was the ones with scallion that made me gasp in appreciation — with total abandon, I must say.
Home Cooked Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok) With Scallions
Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 15 mins
Total Time 30 mins
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine Thai
Servings 24 pancakes

Equipment

  • Takoyaki pan

Ingredients
  

For the shell

  • 50 grams cooked jasmine rice cooled
  • 30 grams palm sugar
  • 50 grams rice flour (not glutinous)
  • ¼ cup thick coconut cream
  • ¼ cup thin coconut milk
  • ¼ cup grated mature coconut
  • 1 pinch salt

For the custard filling

  • 1 cup thick coconut cream
  • 1 tablespoon palm sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons rice flour (again, not glutinous)

For the toppings

  • ¼ cup sweet corn kernels (canned is okay)
  • ¼ cup finely sliced scallions

Instructions
 

Make the shell batter

  • Place all the ingredients for the shell in a blender and pulse several times until no large pieces remain but the mixture is still a bit chunky. Transfer to a bowl, scraping off the sides of the blender pitcher.

Make the custard filling

  • In a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the filling until smooth.
    Making the Crust Mixture for Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok)

Cook the pancakes

  • Heat a takoyaki pan on the stove top. Keep the temperature on medium.
  • Pour a teaspoonful of the shell batter into each indentation. It is important to stir the batter before in the bowl each time you scoop out a teaspoonful to make sure that the solids do not settle at the bottom of the bowl.
    Steps in Cooking Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok)
  • Pour a teaspoonful of the custard filling on top of the shall batter. Again, it is the better practice to stir the custard filling in the bowl each time you take a teaspoonful to prevent the rice flour from settling at the bottom.
  • When the pancake is bubbly along the edges, add a pinch or two of your preferred topping.
  • When the edges of the pancakes are browned, take a skewer to tilt each pancake one by one and, with your other hand, use a spoon to scoop out the pancake and move it to a cooling rack.
    Top and Bottom of Home Cooked Thai Coconut Custard Pancakes (Khanom Khrok)

Serve the Thai coconut custard pancakes

  • These pancakes are best while hot. But be careful because the custard can scorch your mouth. So, wait a minute or so after they are removed from the pan before popping them into your mouth.

Notes

Just how small are these pancakes? In diameter, a bit larger than takoyaki. There is a special pan in which they are cooked — cast iron and similar in appearance to takoyaki pan but the indentations are wider and shallower. Similar to the Vietnamese banh khot pan too.
We were not able to buy the proper pan for making Thai coconut custard pancakes at home so we had to make do with our takoyaki pan. As a result, our pancakes were smaller but thicker at the center. 
We have a non-stick takoyaki pan. While we almost always brush the indentations with oil or butter before cooking anything in it, in the case of these pancakes, it wasn’t necessary to use oil.
Fresh coconut cream was used and its natural oil content was sufficient to make sure that the pancakes did not stick to the pan.
I have no idea if using canned coconut cream or coconut powder will yield the same result. I suggest you make two or three pancakes first and observe if oil is rendered during cooking. If not, brush the indentations of the pan with oil.
Based on a recipe from Hot Thai Kitchen.
Looking for Filipino food?Visit CASA Veneracion for modern twists on favorite classics!

If you cooked this dish (or made this drink) and you want to share your masterpiece, please use your own photos and write the cooking steps in your own words.

More Thai food
Pad See Ew

Pad See Ew

A plate of American fried rice with egg, hotdogs and fried SPAM

American Fried Rice (Khao Phad American)

How to Cook Thai Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice

Thai Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice

Inside my Asian kitchen

Herbed spiced butter

How to Make Herbed and Spiced Butter

How to use empanada mold

How to Use an Empanada Molder

Making crepe in a crepe pan with a spatula

What is a Crêpe? Is It Really Different From a Pancake?

Asian food tales

Scallion pancakes, Tamsui Old Street, Taipei

In Taipei, We Skipped the Night Markets and Headed for Tamsui Old Street

Cross cut of dragon fruit with magenta skin and white flesh

Which Tastes Better: Dragon Fruit with White or Magenta Flesh?

Batchon (batchoy with lechon), Pendy's, Bacolod City

A Year Later, A New Bacolod Food Trip

Explore Asia

Peque Gallaga's "Oro, Plata, Mata" was partially shot in the Gaston Mansion

Oro, Plata, Mata: The House, the Stairs, the Superstition

Fushimi Inari Torii Gates

Fushimi Inari: Torii Gates, Chiyo Wannabes, Street Food Galore and a Secret Garden

An eagle statue somewhere between Baguio and La Union

Between Baguio and Vigan, the McDonald’s Sign That Led to Nowhere

May 4, 2020 : All Recipes, Cooking Thai
Previous Post: « Tanks at the War Remnants Museum, Saigon The Vietnam War Through the Eyes of the Vietnamese
Next Post: Chinese Scallion Pancakes: Step-by-step »

Sidebar

Asian Pop Tales

Scene from "Extreme Job" | Image credit: Netflix

In “Extreme Job”, the Unforgettable Suwon Rib Marinade Chicken

Cutting scallions with scissors in "Always Be My Maybe" | Image credit: Netflix

Kimchi-jjigae and Asian-Americans in “Always Be My Maybe”

Scene from “The Lunchbox” Image credit: Sony Pictures Classics

“The Lunchbox”: When a 100-year-old Lunch Delivery System Goes Wrong

  • About
  • Privacy & Usage
  • Full Archive

Everything © Connie Veneracion. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.