Traditional Kek Lapis

Another favourite CNY goodies - Traditional Kek Lapis. This is one of the cake that I love to eat and my sisters always bring one for me from BS whenever they visit me in HK.

I had requested this recipe from my neighbour, Rose in SG ages ago but never got around to doing it till today. Actually I wanted to do it last year but ... didn't have time and also contemplating too.

Why contemplate?

Er... looking at the amount of butter and egg yolks involved in this cake - sort of stop me from doing it. However, this is a very rich and tasty cake.

Baking of this cake is quite laborious because you have to bake it layer by layer and every layer takes about 4 - 5 minutes to bake. I actually put a chair in front of the oven and set the timer to go off at 4.5 minutes, then peep into the oven to see if the cake is brown enough before I do the next layer.

Oh yes! Another thing, I just found out from my sister that "Kueh" is the old Malay word and the new word should be "Kuih". Before that I was wondering why some spelt it as "kueh" while others as "kuih" - now I know.

Since this is my first attempt, you can see that the layering of my cake is not very even. Now I know how much batter to use for each layer.

Will be baking another one tomorrow.

*** I have been told that this is Kek Lapis and not Kuih Lapis, so I have made amendments.



Second bake. Much better, the layers are even now!


Ingredients: (17cm square cake pan)
250g butter at room temperature
60g castor sugar

10 egg yolks
60g castor sugar
1 tbsp rum/brandy
2 tbsp condensed milk

66g cake flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp baking powder

4 egg whites
30g sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar


Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170C - 180C. Line the baking tin with baking paper and grease it well with butter.
2. Cream butter with 60g sugar till creamy.
3. Beat egg yolk with 60g sugar till thick. Stir in rum/brandy and condensed milk.
4. Sieve flour, baking powder and mixed spice onto a plate.
5. Mix butter and egg yolk mixture well. Fold in flour mixture by thirds and mix well. (I use the beater on low speed to mix this).
6. Beat egg white till big bubbles form, add in cream of tartar, beat till white in colour then add in sugar and beat till stiff (about 7 -10 minutes).
7. Fold egg white into egg yolk mixture and mix well.
8. Turn on the top fire only, grill baking pan for 1 minute and spoon 2 tbsp batter into baking pan. Spread the batter evenly, put to grill at top fire in the oven. Grill for about 4.5 - 5 minutes or till brown. Remove from oven, use a cake tester or toothpick to prick holes on the top of cake. Repeat this layer by layer till batter finish.
9. Unmould cake immediately and turn on to wire rack to cool.

Notes & Tips:
1. Best to use oven with top and bottom fire. Please adjust oven temperature and check cooking time required for each layer according to your oven.
2. Do not grease the sides of the baking tin.
3. Make sure the lined paper fits the baking tin exactly.
4. Do not put too much batter for each layer, else the centre of the cake will not be cooked.
5. Adjust sweetness and flavour of cake by increasing or decreasing amount of sugar and spices.
6. Make sure you use the same spoon and same amount of batter for each layer, so that the layers will be even.
7. Bake each layer till quite brown before adding new layer (the browning should be like the very top layer of my baked kek lapis). This way when the whole cake is baked, the layers will be explicit.