Hello everyone! It's been a while since I wrote a post, as I officially moved to Hong Kong and my culinary environment was changed COMPLETELY (literally completely: a smaller kitchen, less utensils, different ingredients). I am hoping once I adapt to this new change I will be able to gain new inspirations for my recipes.
Recently, my brother made a steamed layer cake for my birthday. And boy, this treat definitely satisfied my cravings for Asian snacks. Kuih Lapis is one of the traditional desserts you can find in Singapore food courts. This recipe calls for coconut milk and pandan flavoring to create the white and green layers. One thing I am amazed is making Kuih Lapis requires a hell lot of math skills — the even layers and right amount of batter needs a precision of dividing the batter.
Ingredients:
350g Tapioca flour 100g Rice flour
500ml Water
400g Sugar (used 280g)
500ml Thick coconut milk with a pinch of salt
1 1/2 tbsp Pandan extract
Steps:
- In a pot boil water, add sugar and coconut milk, stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat, stir well and leave aside to cool
- Mix tapioca flour and rice flour together and blend well into (1) with a hand whisk. Then strain mixture through a sieve to ensure it is free from lumps
- Divide mixture in two equal portions and add pandan flavoring in one of the portions, keeping one portion white
- Grease a 7 inch square or round cake pan (in my case a heart shape pan) and place in steaming pot for 5 minutes over high heat
- Pour about 100-125ml of white liquid into the heated pan and steam at high heat for about 5 minutes or until batter is cooked. Then add 100-125ml of pandan green liquid onto it and steam for another 4 minutes. (reduce liquid for thinner layers)
- Repeat the procedure, alternating white and green liquid until all the batter is used up
- Leave Kuih Lapis to cool completely after steamed and invert the cake pan to knock out the kuih
- Grease knife with little oil before cutting. You may also brush a little oil on the surface as gloss finishing
Tips:
- Remember to stir the batter every time before pouring out the liquid to steam each time
- You can use more colours if you prefer to have more colorful layers, just divide the mixture into more portions evenly
- To ensure evenness of each layer, tilt the pan in a circular motion clockwise until all mixture is spread evenly in all corners. Remember to put on heat mats before doing so
- If you can find natural Pandan leaves, use them on the first step by boiling the leaves with sugar before adding the coconut milk
Enjoy!
