Kolak is a warm Indonesian dessert of fruit and root vegetables simmered in coconut milk sweetened with palm sugar and scented with pandan. The most beloved version pairs sliced banana with cubes of sweet potato, though pumpkin, cassava and chewy little rice-flour dumplings often join the pot. Thick, golden-brown and gently sweet, it is eaten warm or chilled — and above all it is the dish Indonesians reach for to break the daily fast during Ramadan.
Kolak is a folk sweet found throughout Java and across the archipelago, built on the islands' staple trio of coconut, palm sugar and starchy bananas and tubers; no single place or date of origin is documented. Its deep association with Ramadan is well attested — across Indonesia it is among the most common foods sold and served at the breaking of the fast (buka puasa) — and popular accounts link the warm, sustaining sweet to restoring energy after a day without food. Beyond that religious calendar it is simply an everyday home and street dessert.
The coconut broth is thick and silky, sweet with the deep caramel-molasses note of palm sugar and a green-vanilla lift from pandan. Banana turns soft and almost custardy, sweet potato and pumpkin stay tender but whole, and any rice-flour dumplings add a pleasant chew. Warm it soothes; chilled over ice it refreshes.
Firm roots go in first because sweet potato and pumpkin need the longest simmer to turn tender without collapsing, while banana is added near the end so it softens but holds its slices. Palm sugar dissolves into the coconut milk to build a glossy syrup, and the pot is kept at a bare simmer once the coconut goes in — a hard boil would split the milk and turn it grainy. Pandan, bruised and knotted, perfumes the syrup as it cooks.
Variations
Kolak pisang (banana) is the classic, but cooks make kolak ubi with sweet potato, kolak labu with pumpkin, kolak singkong with cassava, and kolak biji salak — "snakeskin-fruit seeds," little orange sweet-potato dumplings that look the part. Black glutinous rice, mung beans, jackfruit or bread cubes turn up regionally, and many add a pinch of salt or a splash of thick coconut cream to round the sweetness.
On the Palate
Where Kolak sits in the Indonesian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 15 min active + 20 min waiting
- 18 min
Peel and cube the sweet potato; slice the bananas into thick rounds.
- 23 min
Bring water to a simmer with bruised, knotted pandan leaves.
- 310 min
Add the sweet potato and cook until just tender.
Watch outCook the sweet potato until just tender before the banana goes in; the roots need the longest simmer, and the banana added too early collapses to mush.
- 43 min
Stir in palm sugar and a pinch of salt until fully dissolved.
- 54 min
Pour in the coconut milk and bring back to a bare simmer, stirring gently so it does not split.
Watch outOnce the coconut milk is in, hold it at a bare simmer and stir gently; a hard boil splits the milk and turns it grainy.
- 64 min
Add the banana and simmer a few minutes until soft but still holding shape.
- 72 min
Taste and adjust the sweetness, then remove the pandan.
- 81 min
Serve warm, or chill and ladle over ice.
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