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Bua Loy is Thai dessert made of pumpkin and coconut milk. Its cute shape looking like mini pumpkin soaked in coconut milk is very tempting.

A photo of bua loy pumpkin dessert in a white bowl.

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Bua Loy is Thailand dessert made with glutinous rice flour and tapioca flour. It has bouncy texture and is eaten with sweet coconut broth. The original shape is round. It looks almost like Candil Ubi Ungu in Indonesia or glutinous rice balls.

Here I use pumpkin to prepare for Fall dessert. Pumpkin also tastes very nice in Indonesian traditional dessert – Pumpkin Coconut Rice Cake. If you love bread, you definitely must try Pumpkin bread with coconut filling or Pumpkin Mantou.

Other Thailand dessert that is also popular is Mango Sticky Rice. This dessert is so popular in Indonesia, almost all Thai restaurants have this dessert.

Why You Will Love This Recipe

Authentic recipe – You don’t need to fly to Thailand to try this sweet dessert. This recipe is authentic, it tastes just like the one in Thai.
Rich in exotic flavor – The sauce is rich in coconut and pandan flavor.
Perfect dessert for Halloween – With pumpkin in season, it is a perfect dessert for Halloween dinner.
Versatile – This dessert can be served warm or cold and either way it tastes great. You can add corn pudding cubes into the sauce.
Super addictive – The subtle sweetness in the coconut milk is super addictive. Once you taste it, you will want more.

Recipe Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

Pumpkin – Use any type of squash you like. I prefer Japanese pumpkin – Kabocha. Peel, scoop out the seeds, cut into pieces and steam until soft. Use a fork to puree it after steaming.

Glutinous rice flour – To make a bouncy texture for the dough, you will need glutinous rice flour. Get it from an Asian grocery store.

Tapioca flour – A little tapioca flour is needed to make the dough bouncy.

Coconut milk – Get high-quality full fat coconut milk for a rich, creamy sauce. Coconut milk is dairy free.

Sago pearls – Pick any tapioca pearls you like. Thai sago pearls are small and white, you can color it with a little green coloring. Cook tapioca pearls until soft and soak them in cold water.

Be sure to check out the full recipe and ingredient list below

Variations

You can also try using root plant like purple yam or sweet potatoes to substitute pumpkin. But for Thanksgiving idea, pumpkin is the best choice because you can also shape it to look like pumpkin.

To give this dessert more flavor, add coconut meat or jelly cubes. This dessert is versatile and can be served hot or cold.

How to Make

Steam pumpkin until soft and puree with a fork (Image 1).
Mix pumpkin puree with glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour, and salt (Image 2). Stir well and knead with your hands.

Knead the dough until it is no longer sticky and can be shaped (Image 3).

Take some dough and add green coloring. Set aside. This is for the pumpkin stem. (Image 4)

Now, for the yellow dough, take some and shape it round like a pumpkin. Continue until all yellow dough is finished.
Line them up. Start using a thread to create the pattern for pumpkin (Images 5, 6, 7, 8). Set aside.

Take the green dough by a pinch and shape it into a small stem (Image 9). Put it in the center of the pumpkin-shaped dough, the pointy part facing upward.
Boil water in a pot. Prepare a bowl of cold water on a table nearby. Put the pumpkin into the boiling water (Image 10). Cook until it floats which means it is cooked.
When it floats, take them out and transfer to the cold water (Image 11). Let it soak in the cold water for a while.

Pour coconut milk, water, sugar, salt, and pandan leaves together in a pot. Stir well. Cook with low heat until it simmers (Images 12, 13).
Arrange the pumpkin in a bowl. Add some pearl sago if you like. Pour in the coconut milk sauce (Image 14).

Pro Tips

If you want to change the pumpkin to other ingredients like purple yam or sweet potato, you need to adjust the water. Purple yam has less water than pumpkin, so you might need more water to reach the same consistency as with pumpkin.
Taste-test the coconut milk, adjust the sugar according to your preference.
You can shape the dough into small, round balls, just like Bua Loy in Thailand. To make it more attractive, add other colored ingredients such as pandan extract, sweet potato, or purple yam.
Remember to stir the dough gently while cooking, so the shaped dough stay intact.

Serving

Bua Loy can be served warm or cold. If you want it cold, you can just add some ice cubes into it. Serving it with some pearl sago will make the dessert more tempting and colorful. You can also add some jelly or corn pudding cubes or coconut meat.

Bua Loy FAQs

You can experiment with purple yam or sweet potatoes or pandan extract. Adjust the water in the ingredients. However, the taste may be different.

Yes, you can make this pumpkin dessert and keep them in a closed container. You can also prepare coconut milk sauce first and keep in a closed bowl. Before a party, boil the pumpkin-shaped dough and serve it with coconut milk sauce.

Storage

If you would like to prepare in advance, do not cook the pumpkin-shaped dough. Keep them in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook it.

Uncooked dough can be kept up to three days in the refrigerator. Coconut milk sauce can be kept for up to three days.