Kakanin
An umbrella term for Filipino rice cakes and rice-based sweets — usually steamed or baked, often sold from trays at markets and street stalls.
Kakanin comes from "kanin," the Filipino word for cooked rice, and covers a whole category of desserts and snacks built around rice, glutinous rice flour, or rice flour batters — puto, bibingka, and sapin-sapin are all classic kakanin. They're traditionally sold from woven trays by vendors, especially in the early morning or around merienda time, and are a fixture at fiestas and family gatherings.
Not every dessert on this site technically qualifies — maja blanca, for instance, is corn-and-coconut based rather than rice-based — but it's commonly served and thought of alongside kakanin at the same dessert table, which is why you'll often see them grouped together.
Where you'll taste it
Recipes on Pancit.com that call for kakanin.
Bibingka
Baked rice cake with salted egg and cheese, wrapped in banana leaf — the taste of Christmas season.
Maja Blanca
A silky coconut milk pudding studded with sweet corn, topped with toasted latik.
Puto
Soft, fluffy steamed rice cakes — the everyday companion to pancit and dinuguan.
Sapin-Sapin
Vividly layered glutinous rice cake in purple, yellow, and white, topped with coconut curds.
Suman
Glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves, and steamed until sticky and rich.
Palitaw
Flattened glutinous rice cakes boiled until they float, then coated in coconut, sugar, and sesame.
Biko
Glutinous rice cooked into a sticky caramel of coconut milk and brown sugar, topped with toasted latik.
Cassava Cake
Grated cassava baked in coconut milk and condensed milk, finished with a golden custard topping.