Thai dessert history can be divided roughly into two parts: before the Portuguese, and after. Before Europeans reached then-Siam in the late 1500s, Thai desserts were firmly straightforward affairs, focusing on sweet and salty flavors wrought by the coconut and its by-products. Other ingredients included fruits, roots (namely taro), palm sugar, and salt, while the only types of flour used were either rice flour or sticky rice flour. Cooking techniques were similarly straightforward, involving either boiling or steaming.
Boiling usually involved the making of dumplings out of rice or sticky rice flour, which were then floated in coconut milk. An example would be kanom ko, among the oldest of Thai dessert dishes featuring dumplings made of flour, coconut meat, palm sugar and salt. Another would be bua loi puek (taro dumplings floated in coconut milk) or kanom gluie (wrapped in banana leaves and steamed), which literally translate into “banana candy”.