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| Cake or kueh, you decide ! |
My maternal
grandmother wanted to have nothing to do with tapioca or sweet potato. Those were her
wartime food and up till now, she would shudder at the mention of these root
vegetables.
On the other hand,
tapioca cake ( she called this 'kueh' in Teochew ) was my late mother's regular contribution to my school
funfair because it was the kind of cake that she could make at a whim. It was not my friends' favorite, a point she happily ignored,
because it was too marketplace.
Nostalgia made me do this, but what I had in mind was
the type sold at Bengawan Solo ( kueh bengka ubi ) and nowhere near as colorful as this. I have
never intended the end product to look like this. But when I discovered that I was running
short of tapioca, I used the lone sweet potato lurking in the dark recess of
the fridge to make up for the shortfall.
Then, I selected the wrong grating
plate for the processor and what ended
was this colorful gritty-looking cake with plenty of bite. It just goes to show that
there are mistakes and then there are happy mistakes.
What's worth
celebrating was that the folks at home who would have nothing to do with
tapioca actually helped me finish this cake . Now, that's cause for celebration.
Ingredients
:
1 egg
150g fine sugar (
120 g for a less sweet version, but a
much less sweeter version will reveal the bitterness of the tapioca )
Pinch salt
300g grated tapioca,
finely grated
80g orange sweet
potato, finely grated
200ml coconut milk
50ml water
4 pandan leaves,
bruised and intact
In a big mixing
bowl, mix all the ingredients ,including
pandan leaves.
Remove leaves and
transfer the ingredients to a lined / non stick pan, 7 inches.
Bake at 170C for
30-40 minutes until top is caramelised.
Cool tapioca cake in
its tray.
Lift cake from tray
and remove parchment.
Cool further on a
rack.
Serve hot or cold.
