Kanom is a Thai word referencing snacks, although if you tell someone you love kanom Thai they will understand you to mean Thai sweets. Kluay or gluay, depending on your transliteration, means banana. Hence kanom kluay is a sweet made with banana and, furthermore, one that is fast and easy to throw together at home.
One of the greatest things about Thailand is the proliferation of dairy free desserts, but every now and again, for reasons unknown, a sugar recess manifests. Kanom kluay is candy middle ground, a bridge between my favourite highly-sugared Thai sweets and snacks that a diet devotee would deem acceptable (seeds? Come on).
In Thailand nam wa bananas, probably the most prolifically grown banana in the country, would be the fruit of choice. Due to availability outside of Thailand my recipe uses typical European supermarket Cavendish bananas.
Kanom Kluay ขนมกล้วย
Thai steamed banana cake
I use kanom tuay talai bowls bowls, but you can use any small ramekin, bowl, or even a silicone cupcake mould. The size of your steaming vessel will determine how many kanom kluay the recipe makes, but ensure there’s at least ¼ inch of batter covering the bottom of each container.
This recipe is easily doubled.
Ingredients
- 1 ripe banana (Cavendish)
- ⅓ cup (80 millilitres) coconut cream
- 30 grams (2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
- 20 grams (2 tablespoons) rice flour
- 8 grams (1 tablespoon) tapioca starch
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 3 tablespoons fresh shredded coconut
Directions/Method
- Bring a steaming apparatus to the boil. Place steaming bowls inside to preheat for 5-10 minutes.
- Mash the banana to a pulp in a medium sized bowl. Add the coconut cream, sugar, rice flour, tapioca starch, and salt. Mix until sugar is dissolved and all ingredients are uniformly combined into a smooth batter.
- Alternatively use a blender to liquidise all of the ingredients mentioned in the previous step.
- Remove the lid from your steamer and use a tea towel to blot out any water that has collected in the bottom of the bowls. Add about 1 tablespoon of batter to each. Cover the steamer and steam for 15-20 minutes.
- When the kanom are finished steaming, either sprinkle the coconut over them and serve as is or spoon them out of the bowl into the coconut and roll to coat.
- Author: Kip Dorrell
- Makes: 10 cakes
- Cuisine: Thai
Mo says
4 November, 2010 at 9:32 pmMmmm. This looks great!
Pandawithcookie says
4 November, 2010 at 10:36 pmI have come to enjoy the glutinous dessert. And I like your use of the seasonal cupcake liner.
Kip says
4 November, 2010 at 10:59 pmI’m glad you noticed the seasonal cupcake liner because, um, I didn’t. No, really. Nar.
Julia (@islaborg) says
4 November, 2010 at 11:24 pmIt’s great to see some more love for south east asian food (I actually posted about rice cakes yesterday)! I think my mother would love these, she’s big on bananas. 🙂
Cecilia says
12 November, 2010 at 5:05 pmThese look interesting! Yummy! (I hope that doesn’t mean something stupid in another language too, because I’ll be running out of expressions :))
Bananasteamedcakes_000 says
22 October, 2011 at 7:23 pmThis recipe makes absolutely beautiful tasty deserts. Simple to make, i find they are much better than boring vegan alternatives to conventional egg & butter cakes.
To anyone concerned about the coconut milk, you can buy blocks of solid coconut from the asian isle in most supermarkets enabling you to make fresh coconut milk all year round ^_^
Sean Mahan says
11 September, 2018 at 7:38 pmSteamed banana? That’s a new one to me – I am new to cooking, but I’d never seen such a thing.