Easy Bika Ambon
Easy Bika Ambon using whole eggs and cooked on a traditional hot plate. Beautiful delicious honeycomb cake, with lovely kueh strands and a wonderful bouncy texture. Sweet, savoury, with a hint of lime and squishy just the way we like it!
Servings: 5 persons
Ingredients
Coconut milk mixture
- 250 ml coconut cream
- 140 g granulated sugar
- 20 pieces kaffir leaves
- 1 stalk lemon grass bruised and cut
- 1 pandan leaf
- 3/4 tsp ground turmeric
Yeast mixture
- 1 tsp dry instant yeast
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1/2 tbsp sugar
- 50 ml warm water about ~40C
Cake batter
- 4 eggs ~ 180g (without shell)
- 90 g tapioca flour ~ 2/3 cup
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
Instructions
Coconut milk mixture
- Place all ingredients for the coconut milk mixture into a pot and cook on Low heat until simmering. Let it simmer and steep in spices for 5 min, stirring constantly and never letting it boil. Take off heat, sieve to remove spices and set aside to cool.
Yeast mixture
- Combine all ingredients of the yeast mixture, stir well to dissolve the flour so that mixture is not lumpy. Set aside for the yeast to bloom ~ 15-20 min
Cake batter
- Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl and mix gently with a whisk or fork just to combine. You don’t want to whisk air into the batter or thicken it.
- Once the eggs are well mixed, add in the tapioca flour (mixed with 1/2 tsp salt) in two parts alternating with the coconut milk mixture which should be mildly warm after cooling. Switch to a spatula and mix well until the flour is well combined and not lumpy.
- Lastly add in the yeast mixture and mix till just combined. Sieve to remove any flour lumps and leave it in a warm place (I usually place mine in the oven) to ferment for 3 hours.
Baking process
- When ready to bake, stir the Ambon batter as the flour would have settled at the bottom. Once mixed, let it sit for 5 min to settle. Line the baking tin with parchment. Then pour the Ambon batter through a sieve into the baking tin.
- Line a hot plate with a foil layer to temper the bottom heat. Bake on a hot plate placed over medium heat (~180C) for 90min. You should see bubbles coming through in the batter in the first 10-15min of the baking. If not, turn up the heat slightly. Cook for 90min or until the edges become nicely crisped and the top (although still slightly wet) is no longer bubbling.
- Transfer the baking tin to the oven and bake for 2-3 minutes @180C until the top is spongy and nicely golden.
- Take out from the oven, remove the parchment and cool. Once cooled, slice and enjoy.
Video
Notes
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#1 Heat
Round, square, oblong - make Ambon in any shape you like. But make it the traditional way on the griddle.
When I first baked it in the oven, even with bottom heat only, somehow the 360° heat circulation in the oven prevented the bubbles from rising to the top. Once the batter thickened on top, the bubbles could not break through and you would have lost the height and those lovely honeycomb strands in the Ambon. My Bika Ambon baked in the oven was ugly, short and stumpy with messed up kueh strands 🙄 This is a common problem with oven-baked Ambon.
After a few tries with my oven, the penny finally dropped when I stumbled upon Dr Leslie’s Ambon post on ieatishootipost. He rightfully surmised (after 6 months of trial & error and finally 🙏🏻 🙏🏻 ) the best way to cook this kueh is on the stove where the heat is kept at the bottom. Bless that practitioner determination and faith! 👏🏻👏🏻😄
Instead of the fire stove, I decided to cook my Bika Ambon with a cast iron hot plate on an induction cooker as I found it easier to control and monitor the heat. You can also cook this Bika Ambon on a fire stove. Just use a hot plate or a good heavy bottom pan, cook on medium heat (~180C) and remember to watch the fire carefully.
Bottom heat is really the key. Keeping only bottom heat during the cooking helps to create magical bubbles that shoot right to the top for those lovely honeycomb strands. Ambon in smaller taller rounds or more conventional squares? Whichever shape you choose, cook it the traditional way on a hot griddle and you will always get those long beautiful honeycomb tracks.
#2 To oil or not to oil?
Whilst most Ambon recipes call for heating the baking tin and then brushing with oil to prevent sticking, I do not oil my baking tin for two reasons. First, Bika Ambon is rich in coconut milk which makes it naturally oily. Hence I prefer to line my tins with parchment instead without adding additional grease.
The second reason why I do not oil the tin is simply because it did not prevent the kueh from sticking. Even when the tin was well heated and greased, the Bika Ambon when baked stuck to the bottom and could not be removed easily.
I believe the direct high bottom heat from the hot plate made the kueh more burnt and stuck at the bottom. Parchment was therefore the simpler, non greasy and healthier solution.
#3 Sugar
I usually like to reduce sugar in my bakes. Since my kueh uses only 4 eggs, I first started with 100g sugar in this Bika Ambon which I thought would be sufficient. I was surprised the Ambon was actually not sweet enough for my taste and that’s when I realized the yeast eats up the sugar during fermentation which results in reduced sweetness. Each time I made it again, I etched up the sugar level and finally found the perfect sweet spot at 140g. If you would like to temper the sweetness, just be aware the yeast feeds on sugar.
You may ask, can the granulated sugar be substituted with brown sugar? I actually experimented using brown sugar for my Bika Ambon. I typically like brown sugar better than white as it adds a more mellow and caramel-ly flavour to the bake. However using brown sugar was a NO GO 🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️
You see, brown sugar drowns the golden turmeric color and produces brown Ambon. Instead of a beautiful golden honeycomb cake, I got a darkish coffee colored and almost gloomy looking kueh (check post above to see the photo). Taste-wise, it was fine but in the looks department, clearly a FAIL 👎🏼 👎🏼
#4 Fermentation
Always check your yeast. It is the yeast which ferments and gives the honeycomb structure of the Ambon. I used dry instant yeast. If the yeast after setting aside to bloom does not bubble and double in size, chuck it as the yeast is stale. Start again with fresh yeast.
I usually ferment the Ambon batter for ~ 3 hours. Beyond that I find that as the yeast works more and eats up the sugar, the sweetness of the Ambon is reduced and the yeast bite gets stronger which I do not like. 3 hours was optimal for me but do experiment with the fermentation timing to get the Ambon flavour just the way you like it.
#5 Make ahead
I usually make the coconut milk mixture one day ahead and chill it overnight in the fridge. This allows the aromatics in the coconut milk more time to fuse which IMHO produces a stronger flavoured Ambon. This is entirely optional of course but if timing is tight, the coconut milk mixture can be made ahead and stored chilled. When ready to bake, take out from the fridge and leave it to come to room temperature ~ an hour whilst you start on the yeast and the rest of the cake batter.
#6 Storage
This Bika Ambon keeps fresh well sealed in an airtight container for 1-2 days at room temperature. Thereafter keep it chilled in the fridge for up till 4-5 days. To consume, you can steam or warm it up for just 10-15 seconds in the microwave before serving.
Did you make this? I would love to know how it turned out. Tell me more! 😊 Please leave me a comment or tag me on Instagram, FB hashtag #thesugarcrumble