Khanom Bua Loi Khai Wan ขนมบัวลอยไข่หวาน - Floating Faux Lotus Seeds with Poached Eggs

I am still in Bangkok, having a really great time, as I am writing this post. These past two weeks have been filled with lots of good eats, great visits with friends and family, and fun explorations. I miss Chicago, but obviously not enough to want to go back any time soon.

For the most part, everything has been great and the reverse culture shock has not been too bad. My one and only complaint, though, is that it's so darn hot and humid here. The moment I find myself outside of the working radius of an air-conditioner, my forehead immediately starts forming beads of sweat. After years of living in Chicago, my heat and humidity tolerance has become practically nonexistent. And the fact that the way of life here in Bangkok requires that you be very active and move around a lot on foot only means that I often find myself walking around town perspiring in a porcine manner, eliciting curious looks from the locals.

They say it takes about a week to get used to the heat and humidity of Bangkok. I'm now two weeks into the trip, but the heat is still unrelenting. On most days, I would leave the house in the morning looking somewhat human-like. By 10:00 am, I would start devolving into a half-man half-beast creature in appearance. Before I sat down to write this post, I had just returned home from a shopping trip along Silom Road from 7:00 to 9:00 pm on what the locals would consider a cooler, breezy night, yet I was sweating the whole time. The moment I got home, I caught a quick glance at myself in the mirror and let out a little yelp of horror. I looked like I'd been caught in a downpour; I was soaked in sweat from head to toe. What kind of Thai am I?


It would be only mildly exaggerated to say that living in Bangkok for me is like walking on a treadmill inside a steam room or a sauna. Then it kind of dawned on me why most Thai people can graze all day on fried snacks, sweets, and all kinds of fatty foods while remaining quite slim. Take traditional Thai desserts for example. Rarely will you find anything that doesn't contain egg yolks, tons of starch, palm or cane sugar, and coconut milk.

A prime example - the ultimate case in point? Bua Loi (บัวลอย ) or Khanom Bua Loi (ขนมบัวลอย ) This very old-fashioned dessert has been named such due to its appearance: tiny off-white beads, made of glutinous rice flour, resembling the seeds of lotus flowers (bua), serenely floating about (loi) in a pond of sweetened coconut milk. Later versions involve mixing mashed cooked taro root or pumpkin into the dough to create different flavor and color variations. Purists, however, opine that adding anything to the rice flour compromises with the texture of the little rice balls.

But a purist I am not. Though I've decided to keep the dough simple, I've gone off in a different direction. One of the most common Bua Loi variants, Bua Loi Khai (egg) Wan (sweet) - ขนมบัวลอยไข่หวาน , calls for an egg, poached in the same sweetened coconut milk "sauce," added to the finished dessert to provide an extra creamy mouthfeel. This results in a savory-sweet combination which I adore.


If you're familiar with the Japanese mochi, Bua Loi isn't that much different from freshly made mochi balls in terms of texture -- perhaps a tad softer and less chewy. The dough itself isn't at all sweetened resulting in the rice balls that are intrinsically bland. The coconut milk sauce is the key flavor component which imparts the sweetness to the tiny rice balls -- and, for this particular variation, the poached eggs.

For this batch of Bua Loi which yields 4 servings, I start off by bringing a pot of water to a boil and turn down the heat just so the water is simmering instead of rapidly boiling. While waiting for the water to boil, I mix one cup of glutinous rice flour with just enough water (approximately 1/2 cup) to form a soft, non-sticky dough.

I then pinch off a tiny piece of dough and roll it between my thumb and forefinger to form a round bead that's only slightly larger than a pea. One by one, the dough balls get dropped into the simmering water. The tiny white beads sink to the bottom at first, then, after less than a minute, blithely float to the surface signaling to you that they are now ready to be removed from the simmering water with a slotted spoon.


I keep a bowl of room temperature water nearby and use that as a quarantine tank in which the finished rice balls wait for the rest of their friends to get cooked. This keeps the cooked rice balls from sticking together and drying out.

Once all the dough has been used up and all the rice balls are cooked, the remaining steps are quick and easy. I put one cup of coconut milk a medium pot along with one cup of water just to thin it out a bit and bring the mixture to a very gentle boil over medium heat. Once the mixture is gently bubbling, add to the pot 3/4 cup of granulated sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar as needed.


While the coconut milk mixture is still gently bubbling, add the dough balls into it and bring the whole thing back to a gentle boil once again. At this point, if you choose not to have your Bua Loi without the poached eggs, simply remove the pot from the heat; your floating faux lotus seeds in sweet coconut sauce is ready to serve.

However, should you be so inclined to add the poached eggs to the dessert, crack open four eggs, one at a time, and gently lower each into the gently simmering liquid. It shouldn't take more than a minute for the whites to become opaque and the yolks to cook only slightly.


To serve, spoon the rice balls along with the coconut sauce into four bowls and top each bowl with one sweet poached egg. Bua Loi Khai Wan can be served warm, at room temperature, or even cold. I prefer mine warm with the egg yolk ruthlessly punctured and briskly stirred into the coconut sauce.