Palitaw Recipe (Filipino Rice Cakes with Coconut and Sesame Seeds) (2024)

Try this palitaw recipe for delicious, authentic, easy-to-make palitaw that tastes just like the ones from home. Perfectly chewy, sweet and coconut-y, you’ll keep coming back for more.

(Love making traditional Filipino kakanin? Try this delicious pichi-pichi recipe or make cassava cake with macapuno for a uniquely mouthwatering treat.)

Palitaw is a popular rice cake in the Philippines. They’re boiled, rolled in coconut then sprinkled with sugar and toasted sesame seeds.

It’s available everywhere — the local market, your favourite street vendor — though my favourite memory of palitaw is when my cousins and I would make them with our grandma.

Lemme tell you, rolling rice balls is a fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon!

It’s still fun to do now that I’m all grown up and living far (too far) from home. Happily, I can find palitaw ingredients easily here so it’s quick and convenient to make whenever the craving hits.

It’s a delicious, sentimental, childhood favourite.

What is palitaw

Palitaw in english loosely translates to “to appear” or “to show”. And this snack is named that because you’d know they’re cooked when they float to the top of your pot. Once they appear, they’re done!

Traditionally, palitaw is made from rice grains soaked in water, ground, made into a dough, which is then formed into circular cakes.

Not a lot of people do this anymore though because you can easily buy glutinous rice flour (sometimes called sweet rice flour) in the supermarket these days.

And while palitaw is enjoyed as an everyday snack or merienda, you’ll also often see it served on special occasions like Christmas, especially on New Year’s Eve.

Filipinos believe it’s good luck to serve and eat something sweet, for a bountiful year ahead, and something sticky, so that loved ones stay close.

Palitaw is especially revered in some families because it floating to the top represents luck floating to the surface. We’re a superstitious bunch, huh? LOL.

Regardless, I love palitaw because they’re delicious.

Why this recipe works

And you’ll love making this palitaw recipe too.

• This recipe is so easy to make. Just 2 ingredients to make your dough, no baking needed, and this big batch is done cooking in about 15 minutes. Perfect for parties and get togethers.

• It keeps well. Unlike other palitaw recipes, my recipe keeps well (storage notes below). You can make them today and serve this weekend.

• Customizable. It’s also very customizable. Unlike baked desserts where you have to be very precise, making palitaw has more room for food experiments. Want palitaw with cheese? Try rolling your rice cakes in cheese instead of coconut, or both. Wondering about ube palitaw or a flavoured palitaw recipe? Add ube extract, or your favourite flavour like pandan, to the dough. Delicious possibilities are endless.

How to make palitaw using glutinous rice

My recipe is palitaw with desiccated coconut or unsweetened shredded coconut (sometimes I also use medium coconut). They’re the most commonly available here so that’s what I always use. They’re also the best for extending the shelf life of palitaw.

Ingredients

To make palitaw recipe with desiccated coconut, you’ll need:

• Granulated sugar
• Sesame seeds, toasted
• Glutinous rice flour or sweet rice flour
• Water
• Unsweetened desiccated coconut and like I said, unsweetened medium coconut or unsweetened shredded coconut works too

Cooking tools

You don’t need special tools to make palitaw. Just a medium-sized pot, mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons.

A melon baller and a slotted spoon do come in very handy.

Easy recipe with step-by-step photos

1 TOPPINGS. In a small bowl, combine granulated sugar and toasted sesame seeds. Set aside.

2 DOUGH. In a large bowl, combine glutinous rice flour and water and knead until it comes together in a soft, smooth, pliable dough.

3 ROLL AND FLATTEN. Scoop and roll the dough into small balls using your hands then flatten into an oval about ¼-inch thick.

4 BOIL. Drop each palitaw into a pot of boiling water and cook until the palitaw floats to the surface. Repeat until you’ve cooked all of the rice cakes.

5 DRAIN. Scoop the cooked palitaw using a slotted spoon and drain well by placing on a sheet of parchment paper. Space evenly so they don’t stick together.

6 COAT. While still warm, coat the palitaw in shredded coconut.

7 SERVE. And when ready to serve, sprinkle with your sugar-sesame seed mixture. Enjoy!

Expert tips

Simple and straightforward, right? Here are more tips to make the method for making palitaw that much easier.

• Palitaw dough. The key to the perfect palitaw is its texture — chewy but has a certain bite to it (makunat in Tagalog). So you’ll need to knead the dough just right. It has to come together into a ball — if it crumbles like feta cheese, you’ll need to knead some more. But don’t knead too much that it hardens — you want it to remain soft and pliable.

• Size. It doesn’t matter how big or small you make your rice cakes as long as you make them roughly the same size so they cook evenly. You’ll also want to flatten them no thinner than ¼ inch thick. I use a melon baller or a small cookie scoop to make sure my rice cakes are even.

• Cook in small batches. Cook your palitaw in batches so they don’t stick to one another in the pot. If you pour everything in there, you’ll have one big giant palitaw problem! Don’t worry, it only takes a few minutes to cook each batch so you’ll be done in no time.

• Don’t over cook. And watch over them while cooking. Once they float to the surface, scoop them out with a slotted spoon immediately because overcooking will result to tough palitaw.

• Drain well. It’s also important to drain them well before coating in coconut; I place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• Coat well. Once they’re cool enough to handle and most of the water has drained off, coat them in coconut. You’ll want to coat them well so the whole palitaw is covered. These rice cakes are very sticky but becomes manageable once coated.

• Sprinkle sugar only when about to serve. You should only sprinkle sugar and toasted sesame seeds on your palitaw when you’re just about to serve them. Doing so beforehand or too soon will melt the sugar and make the palitaw too soggy.

Recipe FAQs

Got questions about ingredients, storage and more? Find the answers here.

Easy Filipino desserts recipes

Rice is a big part of Philippine culture so it’s no surprise that we eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert! Here are more Filipino rice flour recipes and glutinous rice recipes you can explore.

Desserts made with rice flour

• This puto recipe (or Filipino steamed rice cakes) is so easy to make and very customizable so you can use the same recipe to make a wide variety of puto flavours.
• These buttery shortbread cookies are technically not a Filipino recipe but they are soft, buttery and melts in your mouth. Plus, the recipe uses ¼ cup rice flour in case you’re looking for something to use extra rice flour up.

Recipes using glutinous rice

• Suman is a Filipino snack that’s made of glutinous rice and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed to sticky perfection. Eat it with mangoes in the summer or dip it in tsokolate in the winter.
• Champorado or Filipino chocolate rice porridge is a traditional Filipino breakfast. Made with sticky rice and pure cacao tablets, it’s rich, creamy and very chocolatey.

And check out this collection of recipes for Filipino desserts.

Happy cooking!

Did you make this glutinous rice flour dessert? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

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