My busy Monday started with preparing my oldest son morning tea and lunch box, then dropping him at kindy. Then off I went to the kitchen preparing this cake with few pauses because the little one waking up. Sorry baby, probably you are not used to the loud mixer sound, well you better get use to the sound as you will hear it most of the time in the upcoming future. I will post the recipe later with few notes and tips as I didn’t do so well with this cake.

How my oldest boy felt so happy looking at the cake. He always excited looking at cakes because he loves singing the birthday song and blowing off the candles. This time, he did like uncountable times of singing, blowing and clapping hands. I guess it was kinda like a little practice before his upcoming birthday at the end of August.

Tuesday was all about planning, scheduling and shopping. Garlic, shallot, ginger, turmeric, candle nut, lemon grass and chillies for pounding, grinding and pureeing. Banana leaves, garlic shoots, broccoli, spring onions, parsley and carrot for decoration. Glutinous rice and flour, coconut milk and cream, potatoes, tofu, chicken eggs and quail eggs, prawns, can of petai in brine for the ingredients.

Buzzz… grrrrrrr…buzzz…. grrrr, that was the sound of Wednesday. Oh not to forget the hwaaaaaa… ooowaaaaacccchhhhh… (baby crying) and mommy look at this… mommy I want this that and it goes on and on and on…

Thursday, let’s the kitchen war begin!!! YAY and hubby had a day off, meaning that lots of lots of help with my two boys. Early in the morning, hubby and the oldest one went to the embassy to renew the passport and that made me so much easier in arranging banana leaves on platter. This was my third attempt in making the platter.

• The first one was last year on my boy’s birthday. Result: unsuccessful because of poor time management.
• The second attempt was last December on hubby’s birthday. Result: unsatisfied because of lack of research on how to arrange and decorate your dishes on the platter.
• The third attempt: Satisfied, however still need to improve on decoration varieties and perhaps bigger platter will be result in a much more attractive looks.
• Note to myself: find a storage space in the tiny apartment to store a new big platter

Here are the dish starting from yellow rice clockwise: Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Sambal Udang Pete Balado (Prawns with Petai cooked in Sambal Chilli), Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), Telur Dadar Gulung (Rolled Omelet), Tahu Bacem (Fried Tofu Marinated in Palm Sugar and Herbs), Sambal Bajak Terasi (Sambal Chilli with Shrimpt Paste Bajak style in Tomato Basket), Mie Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles with Red Boiled Quail Eggs), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken).

Conversation with Hubby while preparing those Tumpeng dishes around 4 PM:

Me: OMG we ran out of rice. We need to buy them ASAP.

Hubby: Ahhhh… I don’t wanna go out anymore today (answering with sleepy eyes, laying on the carpet)

Me: Oh well I suppose I could go tomorrow buying rice (25 kg) and chicken for Saturday (about 28 pcs of Chicken Maryland, those are for Theo’s one month things. We usually gave a packet of yellow rice with chicken, red egg, red traditional cake, and sweets to close friends and relatives. Traditionally, this thing is done to let them know that there is a new baby born in the family)

Hubby: Zzzzzzz… (snoozing already on the carpet while the toddler destroying the house with all of his toys all over the house)

Friday, lots and lots and lots of thing had to be done. First thing, feed all the boys then bath them and myself. Before we went out, it was already 12.30 PM. I was in a panicking zone. We all went to the city and darn it.. as usual no parking spot. Thank God I had a help that day from a friend. She watched the boys while I parked my car in a no parking zone (hoping that no parking office will pass and give me a ticket). I ran to the shop telling to the housekeeper that I need a 25 kg rice and then straight to the butcher asking him to give me 28 pieces of chicken maryland. I told them to be quick as I parked in the no parking zone. The porter carried the rice to the car, but there was no sign of the chicken from the butcher yet. I ran straight to the car and I was so lucky to spot a parking spot, although it meant that I had to drive backward about 5 metres on a busy zone. Back to the butcher asking him where the hell was my chickens. Surprisingly he handed me a big box of chicken.

Me: (still looking surprised) OMG how come you gives me the box? I only asked for 28 pieces of chicken.

Butcher: Yes 28 pieces of chicken maryland.

Me: (wondering how big those chicken pieces hidden inside the box) Mmm.. I need someone to help me carry this box to the car

Butcher: Okay.. no worries

Me: Hang on a second, I need to buy extra lemon grass

(Butcher kept going and went out of the store without me while I was paying the shopkeeper. Me following behind him and running)

(Me Arrived at the back of the car panicking and worrying that all those salmonella leaking and dripping from the wet box would contaminate my beloved car. I quickly placed lots of plastic bags on the car so the butcher could place that salmonella box on top.)

I think the box weighs almost 20 kg and don’t ask me how I get them all up to my apartment. A very hard work indeed. I had a very busy day and night after the chicken arrived on my kitchen station.Lots of chopping on the extra chicken fat. Lots of pinching the extra feather left on the huge chicken pieces. I wonder how big the chickens were when they were alive. I had to finish at 1.30 AM in the morning since my brain wasn’t really synchronized with my doing anymore.

All I can say about Saturday was busy hectic and kind of panicky, not so much for the cooking but for my two nagging boys. We started the delivery at 12.30 PM and arrived back home at 7.30 PM at night. What a journey, starting from inner west, eastern, northern, west, and city. Well thank God both of my boys was behaving nicely, especially the little one who slept all the way through and only woke up once for a fed.

This is one of the packet we delivered to relatives and close friends. I made 25 packets of them, each consists of Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken), Telur Merah (Red Boiled Egg), Kue Ku (Glutinous Rice Cake filled with Mung Bean Paste).

A little background story behind this pudding. When I was little, I remembered that our close family friend who owned a bakery back in Indonesia always send us this pudding on Chinese New Year. They usually delivered this pudding a day before the Chinese New Year and we (or at least me) can’t wait for tomorrow to come so I could have a big chunk for myself. Well you see, I slept at my grandparent house on new years eve because it was a big family dinner. My grandmother is a fussy woman (sorry ama, but you really are). She won’t let us touch all the cakes until the actual day of Chinese New Year. I never understand why or how she thinks, because she didn’t serve the pudding to the guests who visit her house anyway. She kept all of her grandchildren favourite foods in a safe place so no one could had them. So, why didn’t she let us have the taste before the day Ama? Oh well, I think she likes to have lots and lots of various foods serve on her table at the same time on the important day.

I did an attempt to make this pudding before with a recipe listed on some packet instruction (forget what is the product..) a long long time ago. I don’t think I need to describe how was it, because it was surely a big disaster, ended up with the whole chunk of mess in the trash. So, I am a little bit traumatized to try.

I found this recipe, read the instructions all the way through. I thought to myself, well I have nothing to lose because the egg whites is going to the trash anyway if it is unused. If you look at the original recipe (if you could understand Indonesian), you will notice that she whipped all the egg whites and mix it with the agar-agar mixture. Then she divide the mixture into three batches and mixing them with colours. Then she arrange it colour by colour. Well, I thought it was a chance to fail for me. I am not that big of a risk taker. So I decided to do two tins so I don’t have to weight the agar-agar every time I cook them. I am really surprised on how quick the layer set, and I am relieved that I didn’t do as the original recipe told.

Note to myself:

• Reduce the amount of milk so the texture is much harder.
• The sponge cake recipe is OK, but next time I will use sponge cake recipe from egg whites.
• The top layer is better with Nutrijel (jelly) as this agar-agar is too hard and break the colourful layer as you spoon them.

Ingredients for the Sponge Cake

Recipe adapted from dapur DiFa : Sponge Cake with Toppings, for details click here

• 4 eggs
• 80 gr plain flour
• 20 gr corn flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 50 gr reduced salt butter, melted
• 1 tsp cake emulsifier

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

My verdict on the cake is absolutely soft and spongy even without the cake emulsifier. Amazing really, how can it be that soft without the cake emulsifier. I still couldn’t explain the reason.

As the recipe suggested, do not buttered the baking tin. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The side of the cake is not that difficult, but as for the bottom one, I rip part of my cake and left it on the pan. Next time I will definitely butter the pan very lightly especially the bottom of the tin.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Chiffon Chocolate White Egg, for details click here

• 125 gr plain flour
• 25 gr cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 gr corn flour
• 75 gr oil (I used 75 gr melted reduced salt butter)
• 75 ml full cream milk
• 100 gr egg whites (to be mix to the mixture)
• 400 gr egg whites (to be whipped)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 175 gr sugar (I used 150 gr)

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

This is one of my trial recipe. the recipe is definitely a keeper. The cake is super soft and has a beautiful texture. It is really different compares to the baked cakes. It is also beautiful in appearance. This steam cake is a sudden hit to my house members. When I asked my husband whether I should actually give some of the cake to my neighbor, he simply replied : “Hmmm… not this one, I think we could finish it very quickly”. He was right. We finished the cake in a day. My boy loves the pink one as it has a strong strawberry essence. My husband loves the green one. I love them all.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Bolu Kukus Pelangi, for details click here

• 500 ml egg whites
• 325 gr sugar (I used 300 gr)
• 1 tbsp cake emulsifier (I used 15 gr Ovalet Kupu Kupu brand)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100 ml full cream milk
• 50 gr melted butter (I used reduced salt butter)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 250 gr plain flour
• 25 gr full cream milk powder
• strawberry essence + red colouring
• lemon essence
• mocha essence
• pandan essence

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

As usual, in making the bread, I rested the dough twice before baking them in the oven. The silliest and dummies thing that I did was by not resting the cake on the baking tray in its final stage. When they were ready, I had to carefully picked them up and moving them to a baking tray. A big NO NO, the dough just kind of shrunk and out of shape. So the dough ended up with three times resting time, which I think make the taste of the bread kind of yeasty. This is a very important lesson that I learned.

It is time now for the verdict. When they just came out of the oven, they tasted really good. Because of the butter in the middle, the middle texture that is close to the butter has a crunch bite to it. I ate two buns straight away. However the next morning, they didn’t taste as good ad they were warm. The topping became a little bit sticky. I think the stickiness was because I stored them in a tight container while they were still a little bit warm. In conclusion, I think it is best to finish all the buns on the day of  making.

As for myself, I like the buns and will be happy to make them again. However, since my family members especially my husband doesn’t like the thought of chunky butter in the middle of the bread and there is no chocolate involvement in this bun. There is a slim chance that I will be making this bread again in the future.

Ingredients for the Bread

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Roti Empuk, for details click here

• 500 gr high protein flour/bread flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 100 gr butter (I used reduced salt butter)
• 11 gr dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp bread improver (I didn’t use this)
• 4 egg yolks
• 300 ml ice water (just use 200 ml first, and the rest is just in case the dough is not wet enough)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• cold butter about 10 gr each for each individual dough (for Roti Polo)

Ingredients for the Topping (Roti Polo)

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Roti Polo, for details click here

• 50 gr icing sugar
• 50 gr palm sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
• 100 gr reduced salt butter
• 80 gr egg
• 130 gr plain flour
• 5 gr coffee + 1 tbsp hot water
• 5 gr coffee essence

Instructions for the Topping (Roti Polo)

1. Using hand held mixer, mix butter, icing sugar, egg until soft.
2. Add in plain flour and mix until well combined.
3. Add in coffee mixture and coffee essence and mix until well combined.
4. Using a triangle plastic decoration, the topping is ready to be put on top of the bread in a coral motion.

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Another thing I want to warn you is that, don’t try to fit them all in one baking tray like mine. Because after about 10 minutes, all the middle buns slightly dropped and sunk.  The middle part tasted really doughy and under cook. I had to be honest though, I only baked mine for 15 minutes because I was distracted by my toddler who woke up in the middle of the night. So, I just kinda took them out of the oven, because I didn’t want the bread to be dried and over baked. So, I think that was one of the reason the middle part dropped. However, I will do them in loaf pan to be safe.

This is the looks just before the middle part slightly dropped.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Rumah Ningnong : Roti Sisir, for details click here

• 500 gr high protein flour/bread flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 1 sachet dry yeast
• 5 gr bread improver (I didn’t use this)
• 5 gr salt (I didn’t use this)
• 1 tbsp emulsifier (TBM/Ovalet/SP)
• 50 gr egg yolk or about 3 egg yolks
• 75 gr reduced salt butter, melted
• 175 ml water
• chopped dark chocolate for filling
• fresh milk for brushing

Cooking time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

However, I was saving them because I only made one Lapis Legit. I could use them for many things, for cakes, cookies, coating the meat/chicken, making an egg omelet (of course by mixing them the yolks as well, only lots and lots of egg whites), steaming the egg whites with mince meat and vegetable, and some people even use it for a face mask for tightening the skin.

I was sitting on the couch playing with my toddler on a rainy afternoon. Winter season is here and I need a warm simple cake with hot cup of tea so bad. So, here it was a very quick and easy cake to make. They are not as light and fluffy as the cake with yolks but they are pretty good for egg whites cake.

Ingredients

• 400 ml egg whites (or about 10 eggs whites)
• 175 gr plain flour
• 25 gr corn flour
• 150 gr sugar
• 200 gr margarine, melted (I used Blue Band margarine)
• 1/2 tsp emulsifier
• cocoa powder as needed

Well this was a very cute type of fried shrimp in wonton skins. If you would like the recipe, please click here. Just keep in mind that the wonton skins browns very quick so you need to set the heat into low medium, as I burned my first batch. To make it easy for you to roll the batter into the wonton skins, use to spoon to form a ball and place it straight away into the shredded wonton skins and roll.

Preparation time (duration): 45

Culinary tradition: Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!

My husband ordered me this great book from Amazon called “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan that I have been longing to have. When a delivery guy ringed me through my unit phone telling that he was downstairs, I just rushed through the lift carrying my 2 years old toddler. I was so excited receiving this book that I can’t wait to try her recipe. This banana cake is one of her great collection that she got from her friend Ellen Einstein who owns Sweet Sixteenth Bakery in Nashville.

Anyway, my tips before you bake this banana cake are:

• Wait until the bananas are very ripe. When they are ripe, store them in the refrigerator until their skins are blackened. I know it is disgusting to see the blackened banana’s skins, but to tell you the truth, the banana cake taste even better and sweeter. Because they are sweeter, I don’t need to use so much sugar. If you are following my sugar quantity, just keep in mind though that I don’t have a sweet tooth, so you might add more from my recommendation (the one highlighted in red).
• If the top of the cake browns too quickly, place an aluminium foil on top of the cake.

This is how my banana cake looks like straight from the oven. Why the top cracks? I have no idea. But it tastes so goooooood and fluffy and yummy. I never taste the banana cake this good. This is definitely a winner recipe of banana cake for me.

I had some left over batter that I turned into muffins. I added some dark choc chips to the batter before baking them. For me, they are too sweet. Next time, I will decrease the amount of sugar if I want to turn them into choc chip muffins.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from “Baking: From My Homes to Yours by Dorie Greenspan”

• 3 cups plain flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt (I didn’t use this)
• 226 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature (I use reduced salt butter)
• 2 cups sugar (I use 1 1/3 cup sugar)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature (I use 3 eggs of 700 gr pack)
• about 4 very ripe bananas or 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups, mashed (my 4 ripe bananas was 2 1/3 cups)
• 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (I use Jalna berry yogurt)

Preparation time (duration): 45

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

This recipe was sent by my friend which she found on multiply (http://parmanti.multiply.com/journal/item/11/Cake_Keju). She is planning to make this cake for her daughter’s birthday parties. So we actually made the cake at her place. Long story short, we were too excited in making cake together for the first time, so with lots of chit chat and laughter, we accidentally throwing egg yolk in the bin instead of putting it to the mixture, forgetting the emulsifier, overflowing the ‘most big bowl’ that she has ;p with the beaten egg mixture and almost broke the mixer because of overusing it.

Drum roll pleaseeeee… and the verdicts from the judges are:

• The recipe is great, genuine, easy and simple to follow. This is a keeper.
• Do not forget the emulsifier, because it is able to make the cake spongy and springy.
• The cake itself is pretty sweet, especially for the little ones. So, need to reduce the amount of sugar.
• Need to reduce the amount of sugar for butter cream too.
• Use grated cheese to make butter cream instead of cream cheese, because cream cheese couldn’t hold its shape while being pipe for a long time.

So, I made the cake for the second time at home with little changes to the recipes. Now, the cake tastes great, except the bottom layer. If you look at the second picture, you could see that the bottom layer has a slight curve on the side, and it is all thank you to my ignorance. I was not preheat the oven long enough and the oven is not ready to bake my cake, so there you go. After I took the tin out of the oven, I could see that the cake was actually shrinking Thank God the top layer is perfect.

Probably you notice I had some writing written on top saying: “Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary 30.09.09″ I know.. I know.. it was a month ago. Here is my excuse, I made Opera Cake on the 27th September for my brother in law graduation, so if I make another one, we would be too sick of eating too much cakes.

Here is its up close appearance. See the curvy bottom layer… what a disappointment and ruining  a perfect cheesy looking cake.

Ingredients for Sponge Cake

• 7 eggs + 8 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp emulsifier (I used Ovalet Koepoe-Koepoe brand)
• 200 gr sugar (I used 130 gr icing sugar)
• 125 gr plain flour
• 25 gr full cream milk powder
• 15 gr corn flour
• 180 gr butter (I used western star salt reduced butter)
  
• 1 tbsp condensed milk
• grated cheddar cheese for decoration
• red glace cherries for decoration
  

Ingredients for Butter Cream

• 2oo gr unsalted butter
• 150 gr condensed milk/icing sugar (I used 100 gr icing sugar)
• 75 gr cream cheese/grated cheddar (I used grated cheddar)
  

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

The most important ingredients of Lemper are garlic puree and kencur. Fresh kencur is impossible to find in Sydney market. Thank God for a commercial bottle Kencur sold in Indonesia groceries store. However, fresh baby celery is not less important than Kencur. How lucky I am to find fresh baby celery in Thai grocery store just when I thought of making Lemper. That was the first time ever I saw those baby celery in Sydney. This baby celery is different from the usual celery. They look more like coriander but the smell is not as strong and smelly (no offense to Coriander lover.. but I couldn’t stand the smell).

This is the second time I made Lemper Ayam and the taste and appearance is much better than the first. Gosh I still remember how I screwed the large order of 250 pcs Lemper Ayam together with 1000 pcs of Klepon. The Klepon was excellence as I am used to making so many of them, however the Lemper was a disaster. I hadn’t had a chance to experiment with it and the Lemper order was the last minute thing, and how silly I was to accept the request. My grandmother was supporting me on the phone (while she was in Indonesia) and told me that they are easy-peasy. I am not saying that I shouldn’t listen to her but she was so used to accept a very large order (a very large order that I mean is like 10,000 pcs). I was so inexperienced with the cooking glutinous rice that they were all unevenly cooked and still raw. Since that moment, I was so traumatised  with cooking glutinous rice and never want to even try cooking them again, and that was 6 years ago. Last August I succeed cooking Nasi Kuning (Yellow Rice) for my toddler’s second birthday that I regain my confidence and want to have another go.

I was never taught how to cook Lemper step by step, so I just rely on my grandma’s saying and my memory of how it tastes like. As my grandma never measure all the ingredient that she uses in cooking, so she pretty much describes the taste over the phone. I wish I would pay much attention while she was doing the cooking back then, and now I will make myself taking notes while she is cooking when I go back to Indonesia

This is how the Lempers look like after being wrap in banana leaves. They are ready to be packed in a container so I could store them in the fridge.

I was running out of banana leaves so what I did was laying a layer of sticky rice in a rectangular glassware (about 1 cm in thickness), then spreading the filling on half top of sticky rice, so that I could fold them like making a sandwich. Then I cut and wrapped them using plastic wrap, so the surface wouldn’t harden as they are exposed to the air.

Ingredients for the Glutinuous Rice

• 1 kg glutinous rice, wash and drained
• 1 pandan leave, torn and knotted
• 500 ml coconut cream
• 425 ml coconut milk
• 2 tbsp pureed garlic
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2tbsp salt

Ingredients for the Chicken Filling

• a pair of chicken breast
• 1 tbsp pureed garlic
• 425 ml coconut milk
• 1 tbsp Kencur
• about 20 pcs lime leaves, chopped finely
• fresh baby celery, chopped finely
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• oil for stir frying

Ingredients for wrapping

• extra pandan leaves to wrap, wash and pat dry
• banana leaves to wrap
• toothpicks to secure

Preparation time (duration): 90

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Lapis Surabaya is a tricky cake for me to bake. When I first tried to bake it with my old oven few years ago, I couldn’t even start to tell you how many failures I had. The cake always looked nice while still being bake in the oven, and would collapsed or had like a concave uneven surface after you took them out of the oven. I had so many heartbreaks and failures but I eventually managed to receive some orders from my loyal customers. They didn’t even care about the surface as this cake taste great. I figure the oven here somehow has different heat circulation or some sort in comparison to the one used for baking in Indonesia. I know people use to bake with charcoal heat oven traditionally and now they have a big upgrade oven with gas.

Anyway, I never feel discourage to bake them over and over again. Every time I know that one of my relatives have a birthday coming up, I usually give them the cake so I could practice to play with my oven heat, setting and temperature. And this time, the cake is for my auntie (from my husband’s side actually). I should say that this cake is still not that perfect. There are still few improvements that I would do next time I bake them. I guess the oven need to be really hot before the cake is bake, but I was just to worry that it would speed up the browning over the top of the cake before the cake is cooked. Another thing is that my temperature is a little bit too low, so next time I would bake them at 190 or 200 C. You need to adjust according to your oven though as the heat in every ovens vary.

For the butter cream, I usually used the one with sugar cane syrup, but it is too much hassle as I need to steam the rock sugar which took me ages. So I found this great website about cupcakes and various frosting and decided to try the Meringue Butter Cream as I have an unlimited access to egg whites. So here is the link if you would like to know how exactly the butter cream done step by step (http://iheartcuppycakes.com/2009/06/30/practically-perfect-party-cupcake-in-every-way/)

I found that this Meringue Butter Cream tastes great and easy to work with. The only thing I learn is that to put enough butter cream about 5 minutes worth of piping in your bag, or otherwise it would melt and turn watery. You could see the evidence from my rose buds. They have a thick and bulky petals as I would like mine to look more crisp and pointy. Next time I will try royal icing for the roses, but the Meringue Butter Cream recipe is definitely a keeper.

Here is the cake with the candle on, followed by a slice of Lapis Surabaya before it went in to my tummy

Ingredients for Lapis Surabaya

• 20 egg yolks
• 1 egg whites
• 230 gr butter, whipped with mixer until stiff (I used 80 gr butter Wisman brand and 150 gr margarine Blue Band brand)
• 80 gr plain flour
• 165 gr caster sugar
• 12 gr milk powder
• chocolate pasta (I used Cadbury ddrinking chocolate powder for about 3 tbsp)
  
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (I used Queens brand.. try not to use the imitation one)
  
• 1 tsp rhum (I used “Rhum Bakar” Toffieco brand.. I think it is only sold in Indonesia)
• strawberry jam for sticking the layers.
  

Ingredients for Meringue Butter Cream

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites (I used 150 ml egg whites)
• 340 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (I didn’t use this)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

A lot of things you could do with egg whites. You could make pavlova, cakes, as a coating to your meat before crumbing them, steam them or put them in a heatproof plastic and boil them and they look and taste like a fake silken tofu. You could even put them on your face as a mask, which some people said that it could tighten your skin.

I got this recipe from my short baking course’s teacher in Indonesia. However I altered the recipe to suit my pantry baking stocks and thank God I succeed. Usually cake with egg whites ingredient or chiffon cake could be pretty tricky, but I guess that was my lucky day.

Few tips before you try this recipe:

• Make sure the container you use to whip the egg whites is absolutely fat and oil free.
• Egg whites should be in room temperature.

Here is some photos I took before we ate them

New Update:

I tried this recipe again because I have a huge stock of egg whites. I baked it with different ingredients from the first one. This time I used icing mixture instead of caster sugar, turned out the cake is so much sweeter, so I recommend to decrease the amount of sugar into 125-150 gr. Another thing was that I used emulsifier and the cake is fluffy, spongy and soft, in comparison to the previous one.

Ingredients

• 350 ml egg whites
• 200 gr caster sugar (I recommend to use 125 – 150 gr)
• 20 gr emulsifier (I didn’t use this)
• 1/4 tsp vanila essence ( I use 1 tsp instead)
• 200 gr plain flour (I use 180 gr plain flour, 20 gr self raising flour, and 30 gr of corn flour)
• 20 gr cake flour (I didn’t use this)
• 30 gr milk powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder (I didn’t use this)
• 150 gr butter, melted and let it cool (I use margarine, Blue Band brand)
• 1 tsp of pandan pasta for aroma and colour
• 1 tbsp condensed milk
• 50 ml of coconut cream, boiled and let it cool (I didn’t use this)
• 50 gr grated cheddar cheese
• 2 tbsp rhum
  

Preparation time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Kue Lapis Sagu could also be made from a mixture of tapioca starch flour and rice flour. However, it depends on your liking. I love mine to be as chewy and elastic as possible, so I used only tapioca starch flour. You could use your imagination in terms of the layer coloring. It could be original, pandan, cocoa, or any artificial  food coloring. I like mine to be as natural as possible, so I usually use original and pandan, or original and cocoa.

The first time I made Kue lapis Sagu was 6 years ago. I was not that familiar with the word ‘cooking’. I tried it anyway and made a big mistake. I did not cook each layer long enough and each layer was still raw in the middle, and I realized that after the cake was out of the tin. Big disaster and I panicked, so I throw them back to the tin to steam them again. It was useless really, I steamed it for more than half an hour and nothing really happened. They are still raw and I could see it on every layer. I tried another way to rescue them, which was to cut them into slices, and bake them every time I want to eat. Too much work, and I gave up and just eat them slightly raw. It was still good although you could taste the floury part. I couldn’t handle the reality of throwing them out in the bin. Time passed by, I ended up with selling them in few Indonesian and Malaysian festivals in Sydney a few years ago, and they turned out to be a hit. So I am really pleased of myself.

Preparation time (minutes): 90

Culinary Tradition: Indonesian

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