Candlenut
Also known as kemiri, buah keras, kukui nut, Aleurites moluccanus
Quick answer
The oily nut of a tropical tree in the spurge family, roasted and ground into Indonesian and Malaysian spice pastes to thicken and enrich them. It is a texture and richness ingredient rather than an aromatic, and it is not eaten raw: the raw nut is toxic.
- Tastes of
- nutty, rich, waxy, faintly bitter
- Heat
- Scoville does not apply
- If you have none
- Macadamia — see the limits
Other names
What this spice is called elsewhere, and where the translation is not clean.
kemiri
Indonesian
buah keras
Malay
Literally "hard fruit".
kukui
Hawaiian
The name of the tree and nut. The roasted, salted condiment made from it is ʻinamona, a different word for a prepared food.
Flavour and aroma
Rich, waxy and mildly nutty, with a slight bitterness — something like a macadamia with less sweetness.
Faint when raw; nutty and toasty once roasted.
Creamy white kernels, often in broken pieces, turning golden when roasted.
Oily and soft enough to crush to a paste, which is what makes it a thickener: ground into a rempah it gives body and a creamy, clinging texture to the sauce.
Heat
Pungency scale: none — this spice is not pungent
No heat.
Pairings
Ranked by how well established the combination is, with the reason and the caveats attached.
Foods
Chicken
ClassicOpor ayam, chicken simmered in a spiced coconut sauce, is thickened by roasted candlenut in its white bumbu; the nut gives the sauce its body.
How: Roasted and ground into the paste
Tuna
GoodTraditional Hawaiian poke is raw fish seasoned with ʻinamona, roasted candlenut pounded with salt; the nutty crunch sets off the raw fish.
How: Roasted, pounded with salt, and scattered over raw fish
Other spices and blends
Turmeric
StrongCandlenut and turmeric are pounded together in yellow bumbu and in many Malaysian rempah; the nut thickens what the turmeric colours.
Coriander seed
GoodThe two are commonly toasted together before being ground into an Indonesian paste, and both add body as well as flavour.
Shares a blend
Spices that appear alongside candlenut in the core ingredients of a blend profiled here. That is a record of established use rather than a recommendation, and it carries no proportions.
Together in Rempah.
Together in Rempah.
Together in Rempah.
Together in Rempah.
Together in Rempah.
If you have no candlenut
What to use instead, and — more usefully — where each replacement stops working.
Macadamia
Good matchUse: 1× by weight — Weight for weight; the two kernels are similarly oily.
Macadamia thickens and enriches a spice paste in the same way, with a slightly sweeter, less bitter flavour. In a bumbu or rempah the difference is hard to find.
| Flavour | Aroma | Colour | Heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | close | close | n/a |
Works for
- Bumbu and rempah
- Curries and soups thickened with the paste
Does not work for
- ʻInamona, where the roasted candlenut flavour is the condiment
- Cooking for someone with a tree-nut allergy, who should check macadamia separately
Preparation and use
Roast the kernels in a dry pan until golden, then pound or blend them into the paste with the other ingredients and fry the paste thoroughly. Macadamia is the standard substitute and needs no roasting for safety, though roasting it improves the flavour.
A thickening and enriching nut in Indonesian bumbu and Malaysian rempah — opor ayam, soto, sayur lodeh, laksa lemak and many curries — and, in Hawaii, pounded with salt as ʻinamona for poke. Always roasted or fried first.
- toasting — Dry-roasted until golden before grinding, which develops a nutty flavour and is the cooking step the raw nut requires.
- grinding — Pounded or blended into bumbu and rempah with shallot, garlic, chilli and rhizomes, where it thickens the paste and later the sauce.
- frying — The paste is then fried in oil until it splits, cooking the nut through with everything else.
Appears in: Rempah
Techniques that matter for it
- Pounding and stone-grinding — Pounded into bumbu to thicken it.
Storage and freshness
| Form | Good for | Conditions | Fridge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole | 2–6 months (typically 3 months) | Cool and dark, and refrigerated in a warm climate. | Yes |
Smell and taste a roasted piece. Good candlenut is mild and nutty; a paint-like or bitter-sharp smell is rancid oil.
- A paint or crayon smell
- Yellowed, translucent kernels
- Insect damage
- Oxidative rancidity of the kernel oil
Quality is not the same as safety
Rancid candlenut tastes unpleasant and is best discarded. The separate and more important safety point is that raw candlenut is toxic regardless of age — see safety.
Forms
The form the sources describe, and so the one this page is about.
Shelled kernels
Whole or broken kernels, raw, to be roasted before use.
Roast or fry, then grind into the paste.
Botany
Often written Aleurites moluccana.
Euphorbiaceae
The spurge family, whose members are known for irritant and purgative compounds — the context for the raw nut’s toxicity.
A spreading tree with pale, silvery-dusted young leaves, bearing round green fruits each holding one or two very hard-shelled seeds. The kernel is creamy white and so rich in oil that it will burn, which is the origin of the English name.
Commonly confused with
Macadamia
The usual substitute, similar in look, oiliness and waxy texture. Macadamia is not toxic raw and is sweeter; candlenut is slightly bitter and must be cooked.
How it is grown
The plant, how it is propagated and farmed, what threatens the crop, and where it is produced now. Crop diseases here are plant health, not food safety.
The oily kernel inside a hard-shelled nut.
Growing conditions
- Altitude · 0–1200 m
Common in the drier regions of South-East Asia. In wetter parts it is found on well-drained coastal sands and on limestone, and naturalised in mixed and teak forest, up to about 1200 m.
How it is farmed
- Smallholder farming · Indonesia
Indonesia has a considerable internal trade in candlenuts, most of it bound for Java, and exported 400–600 t a year in the late 1980s. The nuts travel in their hard shells and are sold shelled only at retail.
Most spices are grown in more than one way; none of these is the only one.
Harvest
Harvested by hand.
The fruits are left to fall and lie on the ground until the outer wall has rotted away, and the hard-shelled seeds are then gathered.
Where it comes from and how it is made
Malesia, and spread by people across the Pacific in prehistory; it is now naturalised throughout the tropics.
- Indonesia — major producer
- Philippines — notable producer
- Malaysia — notable producer
- United States (Hawaii) — notable producer. Where the tree, kukui, is naturalised and the nut is roasted for ʻinamona.
Fallen fruits gathered, the husk removed, and the hard shells cracked to free the kernels, which are sold shelled.
- Husking and cracking — The fruit husk is removed and the very hard shell cracked; kernels are often broken in the process and sold as pieces.
- Roasting or frying before use — Kernels are dry-roasted or fried before they go into a paste or a condiment.Why: The raw kernel is toxic and the cooked one is the food; the roast also develops a nutty flavour.
Humid tropical lowland; a fast-growing pioneer tree.
Buying and quality
Buy shelled kernels in small quantities, keep them cold, and roast them before grinding. Broken pieces are fine for a paste and cheaper.
- Pale, creamy kernels without yellowing.
- No rancid or paint-like smell.
- From a Southeast Asian grocer, where it is sold as kemiri or buah keras.
Safety
Safety statements on SpiceHQ must cite evidence — they cannot be published on editorial judgement.
The raw nut is toxic
Applies to: Raw candlenut kernels
The seeds and leaves contain phorbol esters and saponins, and the seeds may contain traces of hydrocyanic acid and toxalbumins. Eating raw seeds causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain. The seeds are eaten roasted — as in Indonesian pastes and Hawaiian ʻinamona — and the clinical reference that records the toxicity records the roasted condiment as food. It does not quantify how far heat removes the hazard, and neither does anything else SpiceHQ holds, so the rule is simple: never eat candlenut raw.
Not among the substances that must be declared as allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II or under the United States major food allergen rules. That is a statement about labelling law and not about whether allergy occurs: allergic reactions to spices are documented in the clinical literature and are simply not a labelling category. Where a ground spice presents an allergen risk it is usually through adulteration or shared processing equipment rather than through the plant itself.
History and trade
Candlenut travelled with the people who settled the Pacific and is one of the plants they carried from island Southeast Asia to Hawaii. Its oil lit lamps — the kernels were strung and burnt as candles, hence the English name — and it became both a food and a light source across the region long before European contact.
Culture
Recorded by tradition rather than merged into one narrative — these are genuinely different practices.
Samoa
The Samoan islands.
Not every Polynesian kitchen ate it. Te Rangi Hīroa, recording Samoan food in 1927, notes that the candlenut, lama, was used there for lighting and to obtain carbon, and that it does not seem to have been used as a relish, as it is in Hawaii.
One sentence of an ethnography, and his own hedge is kept.
- Burned for light and for soot; not eaten as a relish
Indonesia
Kemiri is a routine component of bumbu, the wet spice pastes that begin Indonesian cooking, especially the yellow and white bases for opor ayam, soto and sayur lodeh, and of sambal kemiri. It is roasted, pounded with shallot, garlic and rhizomes, and fried with the rest of the paste until the oil separates.
- In bumbu kuning and bumbu putih
- In opor ayam
- In sambal kemiri
Malaysia and Nyonya cooking
Buah keras thickens rempah for curries, laksa lemak and Nyonya dishes, playing the same role as in Indonesia.
- In rempah for curries
- In laksa lemak paste
Hawaii
In Hawaii, where the tree is called kukui, the kernel was roasted and eaten as a relish called ʻinamona. A Hawaiian saying recorded with the tree speaks of the fragrance of ʻinamona. Pounding the roasted kernel with salt, and seasoning raw fish with it, is how the relish is made and used in Hawaiian kitchens today; the two sources read say only that the roasted kernel was eaten as a relish.
The museum takes the statement from Handy, Handy and Pukui (1972), which was not read. The salt and the raw fish are kitchen practice, not taken from a source read.
- Roasted and eaten as the relish ʻinamona
What it is called
- Indonesian: kemiri
- Malay: buah keras
- Hawaiian: kukui
What we do not know
Published openly. A gap we have named is more useful than a gap we have filled with plausible prose.
Not yet established for candlenut:
- Propagation
- Archaeological evidence
- Historical timeline
- Ceremonial use
- Traditional medicinal context
- Regulatory limits