Introduction to Khanom Chan here. (post revision in progress)
I had khanom chan for the first time several years ago when the boyfriend and I were visiting Thai Town in L.A. We had stepped into a small convenience-type store filled to the brim with Thai desserts and I remember being mesmerized by how many unusual-looking Thai confections there were.... so many more than just mango sticky rice and fried bananas!
Before I could compose myself and start looking around, the boyfriend was already hard at work filling a basket full of desserts from his childhood like kleep lam duan flower cookies, kanom krok coconut pudding, and melt-in-your-mouth cotton candy rolls called roti sai mai.
Needless to say, khanom chan was one of the many desserts we brought home that day. And I fell in love with it the instant its sweet two-toned layers touched my tongue. Both the white and green layers are made with coconut milk infused with the scent of jasmine, but the green layer has the additional flavor of pandan. Pandan is a grass-like plant that's apparently pretty common in Southeast Asian cuisine and has a mild, pleasant, sort of earthy flavor.
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What is Khanom Chan?
ขนมชั้น
Why You'll Love Khanom Chan
To extract all of the flavor from the pandan leaves, you cut them up into little pieces, liquify them in a blender with some water, and then strain this pulp to get the juice. The juice is then added to one half of the khanom chan batter to give it the characteristic green color and fragrant pandan flavor.
Ingredients
How to Make Khanom Chan
To make khanom chan, you scoop a few spoonfuls of the green pandan-infused batter into a shallow dish and let it steam until it's nice and firm. Then you pour a little bit of the white batter on top and let it steam. You repeat this process with alternating batters until you have nine layers. I've heard that the nine layers are supposed to have something to do with happiness, but I can tell you from experience, they certainly have a lot to do with patience...
After your nine layers are steamed and cooled comes the excruciating moment of truth when you remove your dessert from the mold. If you didn't let a layer cook long enough, it may have wept into the next layer and ruined your meticulously-made dessert. Luckily, with this recipe I didn't encounter that problem, but I may have, uh, had a slight issue with making my layers even...
The boyfriend grew up eating khanom chan by peeling each individual layer off and enjoying them one by one. That way, you really get to savor each bite of this fragrant coconut- and pandan-infused treat. It's a delightful dessert that's definitely worth the time it takes to make.
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Recipe
Layered Dessert | Khanom Chan | ขนมชั้น
Ingredients
- ½ cup tapioca flour
- ¼ cup rice flour
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup coconut milk
- 1 drop jasmine essence
- ¼ cup pandan juice details below
Instructions
- To make pandan juice, cut washed pandan leaves into ½" segments. Combine ½ cup of these leaves with ¼ cup of water in a blender and blend until it forms a paste. Strain the paste through a mesh strainer until you have extracted all of the juice. You should have ~¼ cup pandan juice which will be used later in the recipe.
- Combine the water, jasmine extract, sugar, and coconut milk in a saucepan and heat over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Transfer to a bowl and add the tapioca flour and rice flour. Mix well until all lumps are incorporated and the batter is perfectly smooth.
- Divide the batter into halves. Leave one half plain. To the other half, add the ¼ cup pandan juice you made earlier. You'll also need to add 2 tablespoons tapioca flour and 1 tablespoon rice flour to counteract this increased liquid so that the pandan layer sets as well as the plain coconut one does.
- Place a 4" x 4" container in a steamer. Spoon 4 tablespoons of the pandan batter into the container and let steam for 10-15 minutes until no liquid remains on top of the layer. Next add 4 tablespoons of the plain coconut batter on top and steam until done. Repeat this process until you have 9 layers (the top and bottom layers should be pandan).
- Let the container cool to room temperature and then cut into a square. To get a clean cut, it helps to put the entire container in the fridge to cool for a while.
Lynn @ The Actor's Diet
I think I know that Thai dessert place in LA! Is it in a strip mall by Ruen Pair?!?