The Best Carioca Recipe You’ll Make (Addicting Sauce)
Carioca, sometimes spelled karioka or called cascaron, is my favorite Filipino dessert. While the Philippines has so many great desserts, carioca is pretty underrated! The carioca recipe is quite simple.
What is Carioca?
Carioca are deep-fried glutinous sweet rice balls coated in a brown sugar and coconut milk glaze, then skewered on a BBQ stick.
You can sometimes find carioca as a Filipino street food dessert. The outside is crispy and the inside soft and chewy.
Carioca has different names & variations throughout the Philippines, like tungi-tungi in Kapampangan, bitsu-bitsu in Bisaya, and tinudok in Ilocano.
Ingredients in Carioca Recipe
This carioca recipe includes glutinous rice flour (I usually use Mochiko brand), coconut milk, and coconut shreds.
Some carioca desserts don’t use coconut shreds, but I find using coconut adds more flavor and sweetness.
For this carioca recipe, I add gula melaka palm sugar to the sauce for a richer caramel flavor, similar to the Kapampangan bibikang nasi recipe.
I highly recommend using gula melaka palm sugar in general.
I’ve tried different carioca, and this is the best carioca recipe that I’ve tried so far!
I make it at family parties, and it’s always a hit.
Hands down a must-make recipe. If anything, make the carioca sauce. 100% addicting.
Language Learning Bits
- Gata = coconut milk
- Gula Melaka = palm sugar (gula is sugar in Malay and Indonesian langauges)
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