Filipino · Dessert
Bibingka
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts.
Ingredients
- 300 g rice flour
- 8 g baking powder
- 150 g caster sugar
- 3 g fine salt
- 3 eggs (150 g)
- 300 ml coconut milk
- 60 g unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cooked salted duck egg (itlog na maalat), peeled and sliced into rounds
- 60 g kesong puti or another mild fresh white cheese set with vegetarian rennet, sliced
- 2 banana leaves
- 30 g unsalted butter, for brushing
- 40 g fresh coconut, grated
- 30 g caster sugar, to serve
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Pass the banana leaves over a gas flame until they turn glossy and deep green and go limp, then wipe them and line two 15 cm tins, letting the leaf stand above the rim.
- Whisk the rice flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together. Beat the eggs with the coconut milk and melted butter, pour that into the dry mix, whisk smooth, and rest it 10 minutes. 10 min
- Fill the lined tins two thirds full and bake at 200C (400F) for 15 minutes, until risen and just set on top. 15 min
- Lay on the salted egg and cheese and return them for 10 minutes to 15 minutes, until the top is patched brown and a skewer comes out clean. 10 min
- Brush with butter and serve hot, with the grated coconut and sugar alongside.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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