Trader Joe's Thai Coconut Pancakes Recipe

Trader Joe's Thai coconut pancakes are kanom krok: coconut milk and rice flour batter cooked in an indented pan until the outside is crisp and the centre stays soft. At home, whisk rice flour, tapioca starch, sugar and salt into a can of coconut milk and water, and cook the thin batter in an oiled æbleskiver or takoyaki pan for about six minutes.

What is in Trader Joe's Thai coconut pancakes

Trader Joe's sells them frozen as Kanom Krok Thai Coconut Pancakes, at $3.79 for a 6.35-ounce package in October 2026, and lists them as vegan and gluten free. They are made in Thailand, where the supplier pours a batter of coconut milk, rice flour, cane and coconut sugar, tapioca starch, rice bran oil and sea salt into an indented pan, adds shredded young coconut and taro root, and bakes the pancakes until they are crisp outside and custardy inside. The whole package, 180 grams, has 250 calories.

Kanom krok is a traditional Thai dessert. Wikipedia's article describes it as rice flour, sugar and coconut milk, usually in two batters, one salty and one sweet, cooked in a hot indented pan, with two halves put together into a round.

The recipe below is a reconstruction from that ingredient list, with one batter as on the package. One serving, a sixth of the batch, comes to about 280 calories by USDA figures. It is not Trader Joe's formula, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Trader Joe's.

Recipe

Thai Coconut Pancakes (Kanom Krok)

A reconstruction of Trader Joe's Kanom Krok Thai Coconut Pancakes — a thin coconut milk and rice flour batter cooked in an indented pan with shredded coconut. About 28 small pancakes, six servings.

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Prep

10 min

Cook

25 min

Total

35 min

Serves

6

Cuisine

Thai

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup white rice flour
• 2 tablespoons tapioca starch
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 can (13.5 ounces) full-fat coconut milk
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, for the pan

Instructions

1. Whisk the rice flour, tapioca starch, sugar and salt in a bowl. Shake the can of coconut milk, pour it in with the water and whisk until smooth. The batter is thin, like cream.
2. Heat a kanom krok, æbleskiver or takoyaki pan over medium heat for 3 minutes, then brush each well with oil.
3. Stir the batter, because the flour sinks, and fill each well three quarters full. Sprinkle a pinch of shredded coconut on each.
4. Cover the pan with a lid or a baking sheet and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until the edges are brown and crisp and the centres have set but still wobble.
5. Lift the pancakes out with a spoon and set them on a rack. Oil the wells again and repeat with the rest of the batter, stirring it before every pour. Serve warm.

Nutrition

Calories:

280

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

The pan for Thai coconut pancakes

A kanom krok pan is a heavy pan with small round wells. Two pans from other kitchens have the same shape: the æbleskiver pan for Danish pancake balls and the takoyaki pan for Japanese octopus balls.

• Seven large wells: an æbleskiver pan takes about 2 tablespoons of batter per well and gives about 28 pancakes in four rounds.
• Many small wells: a takoyaki pan gives more and smaller pancakes, and each round is done a minute or two sooner.
• Hot before the batter goes in. Batter poured into a well that is not hot yet sticks. Oil the wells again before every round.

A flat frying pan does not work. The batter is too thin to hold a shape, and the crisp shell forms where it touches the sides of a well.

A thin batter that has to be stirred

Rice flour does not dissolve. It sinks to the bottom of the bowl within a minute or two, so a batter that is not stirred gives thin pancakes first and heavy ones last. Stir before every pour.

Use plain white rice flour. Glutinous rice flour, also sold as sweet rice flour, cooks up sticky and chewy. The tapioca starch is there for the soft centre; cornstarch can replace it spoon for spoon.

Canned coconut milk separates into a thick layer and a watery one, which is why the can is shaken first. For flat wheat-flour pancakes from a mix, see the Trader Joe's pancakes on this site.

Taro, as on the package

Trader Joe's adds taro root along with the coconut. To do the same, boil a peeled piece of taro until a knife goes in easily, cut it into 1/4-inch dice and drop three or four pieces into each well right after the batter.

Heating the frozen ones, and leftovers

For the frozen package, the product page gives 7 to 8 minutes in an air fryer or 50 to 60 seconds in a microwave.

Homemade pancakes keep two days in the refrigerator in a closed container. An oven or air fryer at 375°F crisps them again in about 5 minutes. A microwave warms them but leaves the shell soft.

Other Trader Joe's products rebuilt on this site are the sourdough sandwich bread and the cacio e pepe. For more coconut, there is the unsweetened coconut milk.