Filipinos are fond of preparing desserts and meriendas. 'Desserts' are sweet mini dishes, usually served after eating your main meal entree and 'meriendas' are light meals eaten in between two main meals. Filipino meal tradition, inspired from Spanish cultural heritage, love to prepare Leche Flan as dessert. Leche Flan, which is the Filipino version of crème caramel, is often served in almost all Filipino parties and holiday gatherings. Dining table is not complete without it. In fact, Leche Flan is one of the top all time Filipino favorite desserts.
If the Americans have coffee breaks and British have English tea breaks, Filipino have also merienda breaks. By Filipino tradition, meriendas usually take place at around ten in the morning and four in the afternoon. Meriendas can be anything like fruits, cookies, coffee, sodas, or anything that can be eaten lightly. However, the typical Filipino meriendas include light delicacies mix with sugar and milk or mini dishes blended with coconut milk. These traditional and typical Filipino meriendas include: Fruit Salad - fruit cocktail, consisting of assorted kinds of fruits, blended with condensed milk; Halo-halo - mixture of sweet beans and fruits, shaved ice, milk, and sugar; Puto Bumbong - basically a mixture glutinous rice, shredded coconut milk, sugar, butter, and ingredients; Bukayo - made of coconut sweets; Pulburon - toasted mixture of flour, sugar and powdered milk; and many more.
Palitaw is a Filipino dessert made from boiled glutinous rice dough (locally known as galapong). A small portion of the dough is shaped into a flat oblong and dropped into boiling water.
Once the dough starts rising and float on the surface of the water, the dough is already done. It is then dredged with freshly grated coconut and sprinkled with sugar and toasted sesame seeds to give sweetness to this dessert.
2 cups of glutinous rice flour
3/4 cup of water
For dredging:
½ cup of white or washed sugar
*¼ cup sesame seed
1 cup freshly grated coconut
*Note: You need to toast the sesame seeds in a pan until light brown.
1. In a mixing bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour and water. Mix until a dough is form (This dough is calledgalapong in Pilipino language).
2. Get a small portion of dough and by using your palm form a ball of at least 1 inch in diameter. Flattened this ball to about ¼ inch thick then stretch to a shape of an oblong.
3. Boil water in a pot.
4. Drop each flattened dough into the boiling water.
5. Once the dough floats on the water, it is already cooked. This now the Palitaw
6. Take out palitaw from pot and place it on a mesh wire to drain excess water and to cool it off.
7. Take each palitaw and dredge it with the grated coconut.
8. Then place it on a plate and sprinkle with sugar and sesame seed.
9. Serve.
