It's 'Loi Krathong' today in Thailand, a festival at the river. On this day, we go to the temple in the morning and make a 'Krathong', a floating round raft made from reeds and flowers built around a slice of banana tree. The Krathong is decorated with folded banana leaves, and candles. At night we go to the river, light the candles, float the Krathong down the river and the river is lit up with floating flower Kratongs. Couples float Kratongs together and make a prayer or a wish for the future. You can float a virtual online Kratong here.
In honour of Loi Krathong, I've made sweet Kratongs, Kratong shaped snacks from coconut, rice flour and pastry.

Ingredients for Pastry Cup
150 gms Flour
60 gms Butter
1 Egg Yolk
Water
A suitable baking tray

Preparation for Pastry Cups
1. Place the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl.
2. Rub the butter into the flour using your finger tips. Once you've finished you should end up with a fine breadcrumb like mixture.
3. Add the egg yolk and just enough water to form a pastry dough.
4. Flour the baking tray so that the cups don't stick.
5. Roll the pastry onto a floured surface, cut out circles and place them into the baking tray.
6. Bake for 10 minutes at 190 degrees celsius until just brown and cooked.

Ingredients for Filling
100 gms Rice Flour
120 ml Rose Water (Water & Vanilla Essence)
100 gms Sugar
30 gms Desiccated Coconut

Preparation
1. Mix the rice flour with water and sugar. Warm over a medium heat. Keep stirring until it is cooked, this takes about 3 minutes.
2. If you wish you can add food colouring, as I've done for these photographs.
2. Spoon into the pastry cup and dust the top with a little extra coconut.
3. Leave in a cool place to set.

I made these rich cream kratongs (savour or sweet pastry cups) for a Christmas party for my western friends. We don't celebrate Christmas much in Thailand as a mainly Buddhist country, we also don't celebrate January 1st as our new year either. Our main festival is Songkran in mid April, the new year on the old Thai calendar. Still, a party is a party, and these sweet milky cups are nice finger food at a party. The Kratong pastry case recipe is the same as this one.

Ingredients for 15-20 Karthongs
100 ml Evaporated Milk
100 ml Water
5 Tablespoons Melted Butter
2 Tablespoons Corn Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Teaspoons Salt
1 Egg
1-2 Drop of Vanilla Essence
15-20 Karthongs

Preparation Cream
1. Put the egg and sugar into the bowl and whisk air into the egg.
2. Add the evaporated milk, water, salt, corn flour, melted butter, and a drop of vanilla essence and continue whisking for another minute.
3. Heat in a saucepan over a low heat, stir continuously until the cream thickens. If you get lumps put it through the blender again.
4. Leave to cool.
5. Pipe it into the Kratong case and decorate with sprinkles, chocolate pieces, strawberries, or anything you like. In Thailand I decorate with steamed sweetcorn kernels, because we eat sweetcorn as a dessert.

A two layer Kratong (small pastry tart). This one has a sweet rice centre, topped off with an egg pudding topping. You will need to bake Kratong cases (empty pastry cups), the pastry case recipe is the same as used in this one.

Ingredients
10-20 Kratong Cases

For the Lower Layer
50 gms Sticky Rice Steamed
100 ml Coconut Milk
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
50 gms Sugar
Optional food colouring

For the Topping
3 Duck Eggs (Use Chicken if you can't get Duck)
100 gms Palm Sugar
200 ml Coconut Milk

Preparation
1. The lower layer: Mix the sticky rice with the coconut milk, salt and sugar and leave it to cool. I like to colour this layer green or red to contrast with the yellow of the egg topping.
2. For the topping: Whip the eggs with the palm sugar and coconut milk until you get some bubbled in it, (the slightly frothy stage). Then steam for 20 minutes to cook. Leave to cool.
3. To serve, spoon the sticky rice into the base of the kratong case, the spoon over some of the egg pudding.