Global Cakes
Here is a fabulous site to get you set for the weekend. It’s a site completely dedicated to cakes from around the world, called Cake Tourism. The bloggers there have this to say: “We are intrepid cake tourists, travelling the globe in search of amazing cake. Aghast at the lack of cake information in tour guides we will tell you the reader where to go for the best cake, wherever you are in the world. Obviously this may take some time but we’re willing to do what it takes: eating lots of cake.”
Every post is a review of a cake eaten somewhere in some part of the world and illustrated with the most mouth-watering photos you’ve ever seen of cakes, glorious cakes.
The site is also on the look out for Cake Submissions: “Got a cake tip? Send us a photo and a few words about the cake and where you ate it and we might feature it.”.
The best cakes I’ve had were in Austria. There’s something about the land of mountains and goatherds and music that also gives them the creativity and ingredients to create the fluffiest, creamiest, tastiest cakes in the world. They are like those classic images of ladies in white floating about the ballroom floor to the lilt of a Viennese waltz. In contrast, their savoury dishes don’t quite have the same pizzazz, in my view, being somewhat bland and heavy.
In contrast, the cakes in the UK tend to be quite stodgy and heavy - think fruit cakes and Victoria sponges. They are the sort of things to give you energy after a cold, bracing walk across the moors and eaten to the sound of Morris dancing, perhaps.
Asia doesn’t really do sweet cakes very well. The strength of Asian cuisine for me is in the savoury dishes that are tangy and aromatic and light. Without easy and cheap access to wheat flour, traditionally, sweet things are made from rice flour and the texture can take some getting used to for the Western palette.
What do you think? Am I being unfair to Asian cakes? Am I wrong about UK cakes? Or perhaps you have a view on Austrian dishes? Add a comment and share your views.
- Posted on
Fri, May 25th, 2007 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 6 responses
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May 25th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
*RECIPE for a very delicious Malaysian rice cake aka Kuih Talam
A relative in KL writes,
I have been trying to figure out what type of kuay you
meant. Finally I found out the name is ‘kuih talam’. The white top part is actually coconut milk and the bottom part is made using ‘daun pandan’ (screwpine leaves).
I found this recipe in my cook book but I have not tried it before. We can get any type of good nyonya kuay here. It costs about 60 cents a piece.
KUIH TALAM (Preparation: 45 mins. Cooking: 40 - 50 mins)
Green layer White layer
1/2 cup damp rice flour 4 tbsp damp rice flour
4 tbsp tapioca flour 1 tbsp green pea flour
1 tbsp green pea flour 1 coconut, grated
3/4 cup sugar 1/4 tsp salt
12 pandan leaves
few drops green food colouring
1 tsp alkali water (kan sui)
Dissolve sugar in 1 cup of warm water to obtain syrup. Cool the syrup. Extract pandan juice from pandan leaves.
FOR THE GREEN LAYER
Knead the rice, tapioca and green pea flours together. Knead in syrup and enough water to get 3 cups batter. Add alkali water and green colouring before straining through a piece of thin muslin.
FOR THE WHITE LAYER
Extract 1 cup santan. Mix rice flour and green pea flour with the santan to get 1 1/2 cups batter. Add salt and strain through a piece of thin muslin. Test-steam batter for consistency. In a small enamel plate, steam 2 tbsp of the green batter for 10 minutes. This thin layer of batter should be very soft and jelly-like. Test-steam the white layer - it should be soft and barely able to hold itself up when cooked.
Heat an 8-inch steaming tray. Pour in green batter and stir over medium heat till batter begins to thicken and flecks can be seen floating in the batter. Cover the steam for 20 minutes, when the top should be bubbly.
Use a clean piece of damp, thin muslin to blot any remaining liquid from the surface of this green layer before gently pouring the white batter onto it. Cover and steam for 10 minutes over medium heat. When cooked, the white layer should be set but not wrinkled. Cool thoroughly before cutting.
NOTE: 1. For a brown and white KUIH TALAM, omit the pandan juice. Chop up1/2 piece gula melaka (palm sugar) and mix it with enough granulated sugar to make 3/4 cups.
2. Test-steaming for consistency is very essential as the liquid content of damp rice flour varies greatly. If batters are found to be too thick resulting in thin layers on the plate that can be peeled off, add more water and santan( coconut cream powder) to the batter and test-steam again.
May 27th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Thanks for the recipe, yeeton. That was one of my favourite Malaysian sweet cakes as a child - along with that green bite-sized ball sprinkled with white coconut shavings and enclosing a cube of brown gula melaka inside, which melted in your mouth as you bit into it.
May 27th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
PANDAN leaves are regularly available fresh in oriental grocery stores in the West as is palm sugar.The dark brown Malaysian variety of palm sugar is more flavourful than the paler-looking Thai variety.
RECIPE for ONDE-ONDE Ball
A Malaysian writes,
Wondering what is this? It’s a very popular dessert in my country. I used to buy it and then I found this recipe in a local newspaper. The ingredients are so simple and inexpensive. Really easy to do. You just need 1 or 2 bucks to do this. The filling will simply melt in your mouth. Trust me, children and adult will love it!!
8-10 pandan leaves (screwpine, cut into 2cm lengths or substitute with a few drops of green colouring)
200 g glutinous rice flour (sifted)
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 grated coconut, mixed with
1 pinch salt (place in a bowl)
Filling
60 g palm sugar (cut into small cube, 3mm)
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
20 servings, first pound pandan leaves, add a little water and pound, then
1. Strain using a sieve to obtain thick green colour juice and put aside.
2. Put sifted glutinous rice flour and pinch of salt in a mixing bowl.
3. Pour in hot water and pandan juice, stir well to form a smooth dough.
4. If dough is too stiff, add a little water; if it is too wet, add a little glutinous flour.
5. Divide dough into 20 small pieces and form lime-size balls.
6. Flatten each piece on your palm.
7. Put a cube of palm sugar and brown sugar in the centre, wrap it up (more brown sugar is nicer).
8. You have to wrap up carefully so the filling won’t leak when bring to boil.
9. Drop the onde-onde into boiling water.
10. When the balls are cooked they will float.
11. Scoop up the onde-onde with a perforated ladle and put into the bowl with grated coconut.
12. Pick it up, put on plate and serve.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Thanks for another detailed recipe, yeeton!
July 27th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Where do you find green pea flour in UK? I have been trying to track it for ages!
July 27th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I don’t know, Wellies. I had never heard of green pea flour before… Can anyone else help?