Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Honeycomb Cake/'Bolu Sarang Semut'


For my friend at Food Story . This is honeycomb cake from Malaysia and Indonesia. The texture is light, 'holey', and chewy. The english name of this cake comes from the chemical reaction of baking soda in the recipe which results in that texture. The malay name bolu sarang semut means ant's nest or something? (apologize for the my limited knowledge of the malay language.) Have had this cake many moons ago, but have never make it myself. This recipe has been in my 'to try' file for a long time... and now it's not!

I found this recipe at Jodeli.

210 g sugar
240 ml water
80 g butter
6 eggs
160 g condensed milk
180 g unbleached all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda

In a saucepan over low heat, stir and carmelize sugar until it's golden brown. This will take about 10 mins. Carefully add water to the caramelized sugar as it will splatter. Trust me, it hurts! Keep stirring til all the crystalized sugar becomes syrupy again. Remove from heat and add butter. Stir til butter melts. Set aside to cool.

Jo's recipe called for bottom heat only. I preheat convection oven to 350F. In mixing bowl beat eggs and condensed milk. Add sifted flour and baking soda into the egg mixture. Mix well. Add cooled syrup into batter.
Pour into a greased cake pan. Leave it aside for 5 mins so that baking soda can do it's thing for the recipe. Batter is runny.

Bake 1 hour or til done.


Note: I had the ingredients at room temperature. The nice, brown cake was not as sweet as I thought it would be. It's actually quite light, spongy and chewy. Although the honeycomb effect is more prevalent at the bottom due to the temperature in the oven, the top section was chewy too. Interesting cake. My kids get full credit on the decorating and tasting!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this cake. yummy

A Mature Student said...

Thanks for posting this recipe. You have satisfied my curiosity.
It looks lovely. I definitely haven't tasted this before. I do have a recipe for Malai Koh (which I think translate as Malay Kueh) but it doesn't look like yours.
Great decoration.....clap, clap for your two girls. :)
Meringues on their way this Saturday. :)

Anonymous said...

Nice of your kids to share their toys to decorate the cake - hehe!

Little Corner of Mine said...

Looks good, can see the honeycomb effect at the bottom. I think the cake recipe from M'sia usually not as sweet as the cake here.

Cute decoration from your girls! Evy has the same toy too. :)

Dina said...

UUUU Yummy that cakes looks deli!! I must try (i love cooking!)

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Thanks cooking ninja, san.y and little corner of mine!

Hi J! You are most welcome since it gave me a chance to test out this recipe too. :)

Hi Dina! Thanks for visiting my blog!

Lee Ping said...

Wow! Must get Alice to come over to your blog. She made a special request for me to try out a recipe. Fortunately Drvethru was kind enough to try out the recipe for her.

Anonymous said...

Oh, is this the Indonesian honeycomb kueh kueh? Gosh, I even forgotten the kueh's name :(

Serena said...

Hi there,

Your honeycomb cake looks really good. I am in Singapore and we have such cakes in the shops (always sold by slice) and must say that those slices are much darker in colour, not as appealing as yours. A question though, if the baking only calls for bottom heat only, would there be a chance that the top won't be cooked thoroughly? Why bottom heat only? Would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks.

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hi Lee Ping,
Must go and visit Alice's blog too!

Hi Tigerfish,
Yeah, I forgot about this cake/kuih too until dr vethru reminded me.

Hi Serena,
Thanks for visiting my blog! What I know about this kuih is that in the old days, it used to be cooked on a hot pile of sand for a long time (according to my old neighbor.) Then it was cooked in the special ovens with only the bottom heat on and with the doors ajar. Since I tried mine on convection oven, and the 'honeycomb' effect didn't reach the top, so I wondered if the bottom heat is supposed to help creat bigger honeycombs. And since it's cooked longer, it will eventually cook the top? Anyway I will try this recipe again and tweak it more.

A Mature Student said...

I think Alice was here.....wow, sounds like a song!

wonda said...

Somebody calling me? I come already! Sorry, I'm late Wah! Honeycomb cake! So kind of you to bake it for Judy to eat ....errr.. see. I made it once and it has a full effect of the honeycomb texture but unfortunately, I don't know where I kept my sister's recipe for that cake. Honeycomb cake is darker than Kueh Ambon and Bika Ambon cos of the caramel.

Thanks for dropping by my blog. Greetings from the East! Thanks to "Ambon"!

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Thanks J for that 'song!' :)

Hi Alice,
Thanks for dropping by my blog too! Yeah, my oven didn't have bottom heat only, so I didn't have nice honeycomb effect this time. But the texture was there though...Will make a better one for you next time! hehe!

WokandSpoon said...

Nice cake! that's pretty original. Does it taste like a "Crunchy"? (Do you have Crunchies? It's a honeycomb bar)

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hi Wokandspoon, no crunchies, just chewy and spongy. And I love Crunchies honeycomb bars! :)

uno said...

i like it..hmm yummy