3 ways with 3 ingredients

glutinous rice, sugar and coconut: a trinity of ingredients that form the basis of many of the sweet confections in the philippines and the rest of asia. i can't even begin to cover them all as i discover them all.

i went to a party the other day and picked up a few of my favourite filipino sticky rice cakes:


kalamay

kalamay, made from whole rice, coconut milk and brown sugar, then topped with latik, the brown, rich nuggets made from cooked down coconut milk.


sapin-sapin

sapin-sapin, made from rice flour or rice that has been soaked overnight then crushed into a paste, sometimes yams or yam flour, coconut milk and sugar. each layered is tinted (the bottom one a deep ube-like purple, the middle a golden yolk yellow,the top one white), and steamed before the next layer is added. when i was a kid, sometimes you'd see the amazing multi-layered slabs that would go on for miles, but now it's just typically the three layers.


cuchinta

finally, cuchinta, which is my favourite of the three, but maybe for its oddity factor. although it is made in much the same way as most sticky rice flour desserts, it doesn't really taste nor look like most of them. the flavour is a rather fleeting brown sugar and watery coconut concoction, and as far as rice cakes go, while it is sticky, it is not overtly so, and it has almost a squeaky quality to it. it's a bit like a bouncy rubber ball that comes out of a vending machine--slightly oil and slightly sticky, bouncybouncy, and somewhat snot-like (there *is* actually a rice confection from baguio called kulangot which translates to "snot". it come in nifty single booger portions, too). these particular ones have been coloured with annatto, which is supposed to make them more appealing, but i have my doubts about that. the leavening agent is lye, which is made by burning a hardwood then dripping water through the ashes (a slightly complicated process, but not really; you can buy lye water these days, or check survivalist websites for recipes). the leavening and the fact that it is made with water, not coconut milk, probably accounts for why it's lighter and less chewy. freshly grated coconut on top literally grounds the rice cake with its meatiness and substance.