Cassava cake

Grated raw cassava baked with coconut milk under a custard topping grilled at the end.

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

Ingredients

base

• 1 kg cassava, peeled and finely grated
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 300 g condensed milk
• 100 g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150 g macapuno strings, drained
• 0.5 teaspoon salt

topping

• 200 ml coconut cream
• 150 g condensed milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 40 g grated cheese

Method

1. GRATED RAW, not boiled first. The cassava goes into the tin raw and cooks in the oven, which is what gives this its slightly chewy, almost translucent body. Boiled and mashed first, you get the nilupak on this site instead -- a different thing made from the same root.
2. SQUEEZE THE GRATED CASSAVA, but keep what comes out. Wring it in a cloth into a bowl, let the liquid stand 10 minutes, then pour the water off the white starch that settles and put that starch back into the cassava. The water would make the cake soggy; the starch is what binds it.
3. Peel thickly and cut the woody core out of each piece before grating.
4. Mix the cassava with the coconut milk, condensed milk, sugar, eggs and salt, then fold the macapuno through.
5. Into a lined 25 cm tin, 4 cm deep, levelled.
6. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes, until set and no longer wet in the middle when a skewer goes in.
7. Topping: whisk the coconut cream, condensed milk, yolks and cornflour, and cook over a low heat 4 minutes until it thickens to a pourable custard.
8. Pour it over the baked cake, spread level, and scatter the cheese over.
9. UNDER A HOT GRILL for 4 to 6 minutes, watched the whole time, until the top is blistered and brown in patches. In the oven it just sets pale; the grill is what gives it the mottled top.
10. Cool completely, at least 3 hours, before cutting. Warm, it will not hold a square.

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