Honey Sweet Potato Onde-Onde

Onde-onde is also known as bueh melaka in Malaysia and Sumatra (Indonesia) or klepon in Java (Indonesia). It can be served as a dessert after meals or as a snack for afternoon tea. It comes in a shape of a ball and is usually made of glutinous rice flour with melted palm sugar, also known as gala melaka in the centre. The shredded coconut coating gives it a nice fragrance.

Eating onde-onde can be very addictive so much that once you start eating it you can't stop craving for more. Just the thought of the gala melaka juice OOZING out into my mouth makes me crave for it. Thus, I decided to make dozens of onde-onde to satisfy my taste buds. The best part about preparing your own food is you can have it anytime regardless of the time of the day. There is no need to join long queues or wait for the operating hours of the shop before you can indulge yourself in it and satisfy your craving. Saying that, this is my home-made onde-onde...

 

Sweet Potato Onde-Onde

  

Pardon me for the hole in the picture. Once it was done, I could not resist the temptation but to gobble some up yummylicious onde-onde leaving a gap in the middle of the container.

 

I made variations of the onde-onde, using different types of pumpkin and sweet potato. For pumpkin, I tried the butternut squash pumpkin and the blue pumpkin. For sweet potato, I tried it with the yellow-fleshed, orange-fleshed (honey sweet potato) and purple-fleshed sweet potato. The honey sweet potato is my favourite in terms of taste as the onde-onde tastes naturally sweeter and it has a nice golden colour. However, for presentation purposes, I made both the honey and purple-fleshed sweet potato onde-onde. I noticed that the friends and relatives I made the onde-onde for tend to pick the purple onde-onde more often than the orange ones. Oh well, after all purple is stronger and more attractive colour... I am glad that they enjoyed the chewy oozing onde-onde as much as I do.

 

The recipe below makes roughly 13 onde-onde depending on the size of the onde-onde.

Estimated preparation time to enjoyment: About 1 hour

Ingredients Used	Quantity	Units
Honey Sweet Potato	75	Grams
Glutinous Rice Flour	75	Grams
Cold Refrigerated Water	-	Grams
Gula Melaka	50	Grams
Grated coconut	50	Grams
Salt	1	Pinch
Pandan Leaf	1	Leaf

Preparation

1. Cut the pandan leaf into pieces and steam it with the grated coconut with an added pinch of salt for about 20 minutes. Set aside for it cool down.
2. Grind the gula melaka till it resembles a paste. Set aside for use as filling later.
3. Boil the sweet potato, remove the skin, mash it and put it through a sieve to make it fine and remove strains of roots.
4. Work your hands with the mashed sweet potato into the glutinous rice flour in a big bowl till the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
5. Add cold refrigerated water to the crumbs, a bit at a time and knead till the dough is smooth.
6. Pinch a small piece from the dough and flatten it on your palm.
7. Pinch a small ball of grinded gula melaka, place it in the middle of the flatten dough, seal it and roll the dough into a ball.
8. To cook, put the ball into boiling water. It is cooked when the balls float to the surface.
9. Drain the balls and place them into cold refrigerated water for them to cool down.
10. Drain the balls from the cold water and coat it with the steamed grated coconut.

 VOILA! Enjoy the Chewy OOZING Onde-Onde!

 

As mentioned above, pumpkin can be used instead of sweet potatoes. I noticed that onde-onde placed in the fridge becomes chewier in texture.