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Fermentation Atlas

Cereals and bread from Thailand

Khanom tan (toddy-palm fruit cake)ขนมตาล

The yellow flesh of ripe toddy-palm fruit is kneaded into wet rice flour and left in the shade until wild yeasts from the fruit make it bubble. Sugar and coconut are mixed in, and the batter is steamed in small cups into soft, spongy yellow cakes. Made in 5 steps over 17 h – 26 h. The longest step, extract and drain the palm flesh, takes 12 h (Palida T 2015). Wild yeasts of ripe palm flesh and Saccharomyces, Candida, Kloeckera and Hanseniaspora, the yeast genera usually found in ripe palm flesh do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12 hReported[palida2015]Extract and drain the palm flesh
Temperature36–38 °CMeasured[palida2015]Knead in the palm flesh and let it rise
AciditypH 5.8 → 5.17Measured[palida2015]Knead in the palm flesh and let it rise
Fully documentedCereals and bread17 h – 26 hMore cereals and breadMore from Thailand

Recipe

Amounts from a sourcePercentages of the whole batter in the recipe used by a 2015 Thai study, taken from a 2002 thesis. A household recipe in the JIRCAS database uses 1 litre of rice, the flesh of 2 ripe fruits, 1 kg of sugar and 1/2 kg of grated coconut or coconut milk.
40.80 %Coconut milk · Of the whole batter; heated to 50 ± 1 °C and the sugar dissolved in it[palida2015]
27.35 %Sugar[palida2015]
22.52 %Rice flour[palida2015]
9.23 %Ripe toddy-palm flesh · Rubbed off the fibres with water and hung in a cloth bag 12 h to thicken[palida2015]
0.1 %Salt[palida2015]
Starterspontaneous (wild yeasts in the ripe palm flesh); selected yeast starters have been tested

Total time across the recorded steps: 17 h – 26 h

Start
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What changes: Palm flesh rubbed off the fibres drips through a cloth bag until thick

Step 1 of 5
Extract and drain the palm flesh
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts

Ripe fruits are peeled and the flesh is rubbed off the fibres with water through a fine sieve. Output: thick palm-flesh paste.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
deep yellow

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Khanom tan is leavened by wild yeasts carried in the ripe palm-fruit flesh itself, not by palm sap, toddy or a starter cake. Most market cakes now use baking powder, less palm flesh and added colour instead of the slow yeast rise.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Rice-flour household version3 cups rice flour, 1 cup palm flesh, 2 cups sugar and 4 cups coconut milk, fermented 9 hours and steamed (JIRCAS database).
  • Baking-powder khanom tanRisen with 0.5 % baking powder, not yeast. In a 2015 trial it rose most and scored highest with tasters, but the authors note it has less flavour than yeast-risen cake.
  • Yeast-starter khanom tanA Hanseniaspora guilliermondii strain from ripe palm flesh, the best batter fermenter of 17 isolates, is added at 2 %.

Safety

Steaming cooks the batter through. The cakes keep about 2 days, so they are made in small batches and eaten fresh.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Few makers still use the slow palm-fruit fermentation. Most use baking powder with synthetic colour and flavour, and many market cakes use little palm flesh, which researchers link to falling toddy-palm planting.

  1. [palida2015] Palida T., Parinya F., Chonlada R., Tanyarat P., Charoen C. (Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi) 2015, Development of khanom tan (toddy palm cake) produced by starter culture isolated from ripe toddy palm pulp, วารสารวิจัยและพัฒนา วไลยอลงกรณ์ ในพระบรมราชูปถัมภ์ (Valaya Alongkorn research and development journal, science and technology) 10(3), from p. 95paper
  2. [jircas-kt] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Kha-nom-dtaan (Palmyra palm fruit cake)gov