Nom Pum: Coconut Waffles
I've been working on making Pho from scratch, and a friend with a terrible sense of humor wanted to know if I would also be making Phi, Phee, and Phum. So just to amuse myself, I looked up recipes for them. And they exist, at least in some form. The recipe for Phum (Pum) caught my attention especially. We all like coconut, and it's a gluten free waffle. You don't see that often. I asked the Junior Mad Scientist if she'd be interested in my working up the recipe for her and her gluten-free Grandma and Aunt, and she responded enthusiastically, so I ordered rice flour. I also want to see if I can make mochi the kids like, since the store-bought version we tried was pretty bad, but I've been told that fresh it's yummy.
Gathering ingredients. Coconut, much?
Anyway, even though I'd found a recipe, I could see at a glance it wasn't quite right on it's own. I might not do a lot of gluten-free cooking, but I know rice flour sucks up moisture like there's no tomorrow, and I know that coconut cream is usually very thick: not a liquid. So I started out on that premise, and proceeded until I had something workable. The recipe is gluten-free and dairy free, so it's probably a great choice for allergy-sensitive cooking. It's very sweet, so you won't want to add syrup to these pancakes! Fresh fruit will be lovely on top, though. They paired beautifully with salty bacon to make a fun weekend breakfast, but I think they'd be best as dessert.
Thick, dense, yummy - great texture.
Nom Pum
3 Cups rice flour (I used a sweet rice flour)
1/2 c brown sugar (palm if you have it, I didn't)
1/2 tsp salt
3 whole large eggs
1 cup coconut cream
2-3 cups coconut milk
1/2 cup shredded coconut (I have the kind that is sugared, increase the sugar added if you have the unsweetened)
coconut oil to grease iron.
Very thick batter. I could probably have put in more coconut milk, but this was already a lot!
Heat your waffle iron - I have a belgian-style, but the thinner ones might work better.
Mix up the flour, salt, sugar, eggs, and coconut cream, then start adding coconut milk until the batter is a thick consistency, about the same viscosity as cake batter, maybe a little thicker. Put about 1/2 cup on the hot waffle iron after brushing it with coconut oil, and spread it out a little. Shut the iron and allow to cook for about 5 minutes, or until outside is golden brown. This is very dense, so it takes a while to cook through. Let it go a minute or so longer than you think it needs.
This is about a half-cup, and if you give it a swirl with the back of the spoon to spread it out, it's better.
These are yummy, almost like cookies, crunchy on the outside and chewy inside. They are very coconut, of course!
If you have leftovers - this is a large amount of batter - you can freeze them and toast them later. You can do that with any waffles or pancakes, actually.