I’ve recently joined a facebook group called the “Indonesian Foodblogger”
Like most groups you see on the internet, this group aims to bring together Indonesian foodbloggers around the world. It is a place where you can share or question anything food related.
To further engange its members, the Indonesian Foodblogger (IFDB) puts forward a challenge each month. And for the month of May, the theme is “layered cake”.
However, there is a catch.
The challenge does not accept cakes that are baked, and then LAYERED with buttercream, ganache and the likes.
It accepts cakes which are layered WHILE they (the cake) is cooking..
Which pretty much means you gotta stand around, fiddling your thumbs while you pour your cake batter and watch it cook layer by layer. It involves a great deal of time.
So, i set aside an evening for it.
I carried baby Crustabakes on my hip as i started weighing my ingredients.It’s crazy, but I have developed some kind of superpower whereby i can balance baby Crustabakes on my left hip and still be completely functional with my right arm.
Like a good trade off, this cake is fairly simple to execute. A time consuming, but minimal labor kinda cake.
All you need is a simple whisk, and a lot of bowls.
Three bowls, for the three different colours on the cake.
I’ve chosen pink and green for this cake.
Because those are the colours stated in the recipe.
Also because those were the only food colorings i had at home. Yes, unfortunately, i used food coloring for this cake.
I may be functional with my right arm, but i am not THAT functional to be pounding at leaves or fruits to get natural food dye.
So off i go, steaming this cake, layer by layer.
8 minutes per layer.
Alternating the layers between white, green, then pink and repeating the sequence over and over again till the batter gets used up.It took a total of about 2 hours.
By the end of it, i had put baby C to sleep, took a shower, brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.
All while cooking a cake.
Talk about multi-tasking!
Lapis Beras
Loosely translated from 52 Resep Kue Berlapis
1.5 Litres coconut milk, squeezed from 2 heads of coconuts
3 blades of pandan leaves
1 tsp salt
300 gram rice flour
85 gram sago flour
300 grams granulated sugar
6 drops green food coloring
6 drops red food coloring
1. Bring to boil coconut milk, pandan leaves and salt, all the while stirring. Strain, and discard the pandan leaves. Set aside to cool.
2. Sift the rice flour, sago flour and the sugar.Slowly whisk warm (not hot) coconut milk into the flour mixture.
3. Divide the batter into 3 bowls. Drop green food coloring into one bowl. Drop red food coloring into another bowl and leave the third one white.
4.Pour 100 ml of white batter onto a greased square tin (18cm x 18cm x 7 cm). Steam for 8 minutes.
5. Pour 100 ml of green batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes
6. Pour 100 ml of red batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes.
7. Repeat the sequence of white, green and red, till all the batter gets used up.
8. For the last layer, steam for a final 30 minutes. Let cool before serving.
