What is your Favorite Kakanin?

Bibingka, Puto, Carioca, Maja Blanca, Pitsi-pitsi, Suman, Biko, Halayang Ube, Cassava Cake, Butsi, Palitaw

Uniquely Filipino, these are sweet munchies or sometimes desserts made from rice, sweet rice or root vegetables that are slow cooked and usually made with coconut or coconut milk.

Ask your kid to choose between a Biko or a Cake to take to school, and I bet he chooses the latter.

It is not one that kids tend to bring to school as baon or packed snack, as there is a connotation that it is 'too native' and not cool.

On the other hand, grown-ups, especially those living outside the Philippines, crave for these delicacies.

Quite laborious to make, not all households make their own Kalamay or Halayang Ube. Most would rather buy than say, stir a sticky sweet rice for an hour until it gets chewy.

What qualifies a sweet delicacy as Ka kanin?

• It could be made from rice or sweet rice, or any of the root vegetables like ube, cassava, taro.
• It could use coconut, and coconut by-products.
• It could be cooked in banana leaf or flavored with pandan leaf.
• It usually is sticky, chewy and takes hours to make - a real labor of love...
• And they're Filipino originals!

  All these make them really special and worth all the work!

Kalamay
Sweet Rice Dessert with Coconut Cream Topping

Palitaw
Sticky Rice with Shredded Coconut, Sugar and Sesame Seeds

Halayang Ube
Purple Yam Dessert

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