Lapis Sagu 九层糕

I love eating this kueh since young.  Whenever I go to Bengawan Solo, this will always be my choice.  So, when I saw Alan Goh's blog post on Lapis Sugu, I bookmarked it immediately.  The photos of the kueh he posted were so beautiful and he made the whole process looks so do-able.   Knowing that the process of making it is time consuming, I waited patiently for the right time to do it.  Recently, I saw a lot of postings on Lapis Sugu on facebook using this recipe.  So, with the long holidays in mind, I finally got all the ingredients ready and made it on National Day!

I made half the recipe hoping to quicken the whole process.  :P  But because of the size of my wok, I was not able to use the 9x9 inch square tin for steaming. Instead, I did mine using a smaller round tin.  I spent a total of 3.5 hours for the whole process while watching the National Day parade.  And after more than 6 hours of cooling down (it was already 2am by then), I sliced it and was greeted with a pretty Lapis Sugu! My kids loved the kueh too though my husband and mother commented that the coconut taste was not fragrant enough.  This could be because I used only coconut milk instead of mixing with coconut cream in my recipe.  But overall, I am happy with it.  Great thanks to Alan for his kind sharing!

Below is the recipe taken from Alan Goh’s blog. I’ve half the recipe to record the exact quantity I did. You may wish to refer here for the full recipe and the useful notes.
Ingredients ( for a 9 x 9 ” square tin)
240g         Tapioca flour
75g           Sago flour
18g           Mung Bean flour
25g           Rice flour
360ml       Thick coconut milk (I used normal chilled coconut milk)
325g         Sugar
500 ml      Water
3-4            Pandan Leaves, knotted
Pinch        Salt
Food colouring (red and green)

Method

1. Boil sugar with pandan leaves in 500ml of water until sugar melts. Strain the syrup and dilute with water to make to 750ml.
2. Mix all the flour and salt together. Pour coconut milk a little at a time and mix till smooth. Set aside.
3. Pour the syrup from (1) into the flour mixture. Stir constantly till well blended.
4. Divide mixture into 3 portions. Leave one portion uncoloured. Mix each of the other 2 portions with red and green colouring.
5. Grease a 9″ square baking tin with a little oil. Place the tin in a steamer and steam until hot. Pour in the uncoloured mixture (90g – I used a ladle almost to full scoop) and steam for about 8 mins.  Repeat another layer with the uncoloured mixture.
6. Repeat step (5) with other coloured batter until all batter is used up. Top layer must be red. Leave the cake to cool at room temperature for 7-8 hours before cutting.