Coconut Sticky Rice Waffles

Name: Coconut Sticky Rice Waffles
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Laos
Ingredients: 1 cup (200 g) Thai sticky rice, soaked overnight and drained; 1 (13.5 oz / 400 ml) can full-fat coconut milk; 3 large eggs; ¼ cup (50 g) sugar; ½ tsp fine salt; ¾ cup (90 g) all-purpose flour; ¼ cup (30 g) tapioca starch; 1 tsp baking powder; 3 tbsp melted unsalted butter, plus more for the iron; 1 ripe mango, sliced, to serve; 2 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds, to serve; 3 tbsp coconut cream, to serve; Palm sugar syrup, to serve

Fusion · Medium · Makes 6 waffles

Coconut sticky rice waffles are the #118's cousin with the Lao-Thai dessert as the batter: glutinous rice, coconut milk, sugar, and salt — the #57's own ingredients — ground into a waffle that is crisp at the shell and mochi-chewy at the center. Salted coconut caramel over, fresh mango beside: the #57 in waffle form.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The batter

The caramel and fruit

a dry caramel dissolved with the cream (the #29's window, carefully)

- **Soak the rice the full 4 hours — then blend it raw.** The soaked rice blends with the coconut milk and eggs into a pourable batter (a high-power blender, 2 minutes, scraping down); there is no flour in this waffle — the glutinous rice IS the flour, and its chew is the point. - **The bridge:** none needed — every ingredient is the #57's shelf. A waffle iron is the one tool, and any kind works (the Belgian depth gives the best crisp-to-chew ratio).

Step 1. **Blend the batter.** Drain the soaked rice; blend with the coconut milk, eggs, sugar, and salt for a full 2 minutes to a smooth, thick-pourable batter. Rest 20 minutes (the rice hydrates further, the batter thickens), then stir in the baking powder and sesame. Checkpoint — the batter should be smooth (no whole grains visible) and thick — falling in a slow ribbon from the spoon. Taste: coconut-sweet with the salt's structural presence (the #57's law runs in batter form).

Step 2. **Iron hot and patient (3–4 minutes each).** Cook in a fully preheated, well-oiled iron until deep gold — these waffles color less than flour ones but crisp on a longer schedule; wait for the steam to slow. Checkpoint — the waffle's shell should crackle and its interior stay dense-chewy, mochi-like — the glutinous rice's signature, unlike any wheat waffle. Pull at deep gold; pale ones stay soft.

Step 3. **The caramel and assembly.** Make the salted caramel (the #29's amber window, then carefully the cream and salt); serve each hot waffle with a pour of caramel and the mango beside. Checkpoint — eating test: the shell's crack, the center's coconut chew, the salted caramel's bittersweet, and the mango's cool ripe acid — the #57's whole dessert translated to breakfast, the salt underneath everything as always. The block's #118 and #125 are this waffle's immediate family; the #57 is its parent. Chef’s Note — the glutinous-rice batter is the block's most interesting flour substitution: it behaves like wheat flour in the iron but delivers mochi's chew — the same starch physics as the #79's hand-rolled noodles, here in breakfast form. Once the batter's law is learned (soak fully, blend smooth, iron patiently), the format carries any of the region's rice desserts into waffles.