Thais and our Thai Desserts

The wide variety of Thai desserts is evidence of the ingenuity of our forbearers who made of the abundance of the land such as grains, bulbs, fruits, egg, sugar, etc They invented their desserts on a trial-and-error basis, adjusting the taste to please their palate. Once they arrived at the best ingredients, the resulting recipes were passed on from generation to generation as part of our cultural heritage.

The beauty of Thai desserts rests not only with their exquisite shapes, which are crafted and designed carefully with the rich imagination of their inventors.

Also important to the presentation are color and smell. The colors used are also selected precisely from nature, green from the screw pine, purple from the butterfly pea and yellow from tumeric. To attain their sweet fragrance, scented candles or flowers like ilang-ilang, jasmines and roses are added to Thai desserts when they are served.

Thai desserts are available in hundreds of varieties, both indigenous and those adopted from foreign desserts brought into ancient Siam by foreigners on their merchandise-laden boats.

The cooking methods, too, are equally varied. They can be boiled, steamed, deep-fried, grilled, caramelized, sugar coated, smoked or griddled. In addition, Thai people also make different desserts for different festivals. For example, for the tenth month festival, villagers in the central plain make a kind of dessert known as Krayasart, as an offering for Buddhist monks. In E-san (North East Thailand), steamed sticky rice with banana filling called Khao Tom Mud is made as an offering for the deceased during the Boon-Khao-Sark festival, also held in the middle of the tenth month.