RECIPE: RAINBOW LAYERED STEAMED CAKE (KUIH LAPIS PELANGI)

To be honest, I have never made KUIH LAPIS before as I thought it would be too hard and time consuming. Imagine my amazement when I found that it is actually quite easy to make providing you follow some really easy steps. It took me 5 mins for every layer (there were eight layers in total) with an extra 15 mins for the last layer. With preparation and cooking time, the cake was ready in 1.25 hours. Not bad, considering it was my first effort.


I have to thank Sis Ummi for this achievement as I saw this layer cake on her blog and it gave me the motivation to make it. Without much ado, here’s my RAINBOW LAYERED STEAMED CAKE.

Ingredients

2 cups thick coconut milk (I used tinned coconut milk) (see my GLOSSARY post on COCONUT MILK)
1 cup plain flour
½ to 2/3 cups sugar
2 tbsp rice flour
2 tbsp custard flour
½ tsp salt
Green, yellow, red and blue food colourings
7 inch (or smaller) cake tin


Method

Sift the plain flour and rice flour separately. Set aside.

Get your steamer and cake tin ready. Do not oil your cake tin.

In a large bowl, and using a whisk, whisk together the sugar and coconut milk. Heat it in the microwave for 20 secs….don’t even try to cook it for longer as it will curdle the milk. We just want the milk to be tepid. Add in the salt.

Now, using 1 tbsp additions at a time (and still using the whisk), start blending the flours into the coconut milk, starting with the rice flour, custard flour and ending with the plain flour. You have to make small additions of flour at a time as you don’t want your batter to be lumpy. FYI, I did not use the last two tbsp of plain flour as the batter looked quite thick. The consistency of the batter should be similar to that of a thick pancake mix.

Now divide the batter into four bowls and and add ½ to 1 tsp of colouring. Now put a layer of the colour into your tin. I found that with this measurement, you can get 8 layers so use half of your colouring per layer. Steam for 5 mins and repeat the process using different colours for each layer until all the batter is used.

For the last layer, steam an extra 15 to 20 mins. Remove from the steamer and place the cake tin on a wire rack. Leave in the tin to cool completely (around an hour). Cut into desired shapes and serve with a cuppa for afternoon tea or as a sweet snack for the morning munchy attack!!!