Bibingka

A rice cake baked in a banana leaf with heat above and below.

Duck, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name, duck.

Ingredients

• 300 g rice flour
• 150 g caster sugar
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 3 eggs
• 12 g baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• banana leaves, cut into rounds and wilted
• 2 salted duck eggs, sliced
• 100 g kesong puti or mild white cheese, sliced
• 60 g butter, melted
• grated coconut, to finish

Method

1. WILT THE BANANA LEAVES over a flame or in boiling water until they turn glossy and flexible. Raw leaf cracks when you line the tin and splits in the oven.
2. Line the tins with the leaves and brush them with butter.
3. Whisk the rice flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, then the eggs and coconut milk, to a thin batter. Rest it 15 minutes.
4. Pour in to about 2 cm and bake at 190C for 15 minutes.
5. NOW LAY THE SALTED EGG AND CHEESE ON TOP AND FINISH IT WITH HEAT FROM ABOVE — the grill, or the top of the oven — for 8 minutes. The original is baked in a clay pot with coals under it AND coals on the lid, and that heat from both directions is what gives a set top and a browned base.
6. Put the toppings on at the start and they sink into the batter and the salted egg oversalts the whole cake.
7. Brush with butter and scatter grated coconut. Eaten warm, in the leaf.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes