Khanom tan is flavored with which palm?

Khanom tan is flavored with toddy palm, especially toddy palm fruit and its sweet sap-derived sugar.

This traditional Thai dessert is a small steamed cake made from rice flour, coconut milk, sugar, and toddy palm fruit. The batter is commonly fermented, which gives the cakes their characteristic airy, spongy texture. They are often steamed in banana-leaf cups and finished with grated coconut.

The dessert is strongly associated with Thailand’s sugar-palm-growing provinces, including Phetchaburi, Nakhon Pathom, and Suphanburi. The Thai word tan itself means “toddy palm,” and the term has roots in the Pali and Sanskrit word tala.

A common mix-up is confusing toddy palm with coconut or date palm. Coconut is still important in the recipe, but it supplies richness rather than the distinctive palm flavor. Khanom tan is also sometimes described simply as a toddy-palm cake.