Khanom tan

Khanom tan is a traditional Thai dessert of small steamed cakes flavoured with toddy palm sugar and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and topped with grated coconut. It is most often found in provinces where sugar palm is grown, such as Phetchaburi, Nakhon Pathom and Suphanburi. The batter is made from coconut milk, rice flour, a raising agent and the soft ripe fruit pulp of the toddy palm, and unlike the related steamed dessert khanom kluay it needs to be fermented to give the cake its spongy texture. The name comes from the Thai word tan, which derives through Pali and Sanskrit from a word meaning toddy palm. The dessert is described as dating from the Sukhothai period, when sweets were built on rice flour, sugar and coconut rather than the egg and sugar mixtures of later Ayutthaya-period confections. It has largely vanished from street markets in Bangkok and is better known outside that area than among younger Thais.