Hello Everyone! Day 05 of 12 is here and I have another dessert to share with all the sweet tooth’s out there. If you are following my Instagram page (@amcarmenskitchen), I posted a picture of the ingredients and made mention that you essentially only need 4 ingredients (actually 3 because you can omit one of the ingredients) to make this yummy and definitely filling dessert! All you really need it glutinous rice, white sugar, coconut milk, and a bit of violet food colouring. You can omit the food colouring and substitute the white sugar for brown to colour your bikò, which is actually how it’s traditionally done. I only picked up the idea of using violet colouring from my Mom’s relative when we visited their whole family in Canada back in the Summer of 2007. Adding the violet colouring doesn’t do anything for the taste (duh), but it definitely makes the dish a whole lot more attractive and inviting.

For those of you who don’t know, bikò, or otherwise known simply as a Filipino Sticky Rice Cake, served during special occasions such as birthday parties, family reunions, town fiestas, and of course, for Noche Buena. It’s not a tedious process, it’s just hard on the arm because of all the mixing that needs to be done.  It is then garnished with latík, which is basically just cooked coconut milk residue, set at the centre of each slice, and is traditionally served over a banana leaf in a bilao, which is basically just a round woven bamboo tray.

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 40 MINS | SERVES 6-8

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups glutinous rice, washed and drained
• 2 cups water
• 2 packs (200ml each) coconut milk
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tsp violet food colouring

• Banana leaves
• Bilao

METHOD

1. Add the glutinous rice, water, and violet for colouring in a large pot. Mix and then place over high heat, leaving the rice to cook for about 15 minutes or when the rice is about half-done.
2. When the rice is half-done, add in one of the packs of coconut milk and mix well. Leave it to cook for another 15 minutes or until the oil starts to separate from the coconut milk. At this point, you want to reduce your heat down to about medium-low to avoid the rice sticking to the bottom of your pot.
3. Meanwhile add the other pack of coconut milk in a separate pan and cook until the oil separates from the milk and turns golden brown. Drain from the oil and then set aside.
4. Prepare the banana leaves by lightly heating it over the stovetop burner to make it pliable and easy to handle. Then, place the the banana leaves over the bilao and set aside.
5. Crank up the heat to about medium-high and add the sugar into the glutinous rice mixture. Mix and allow the sugar to caramelised, about 10 minutes. Once done, turn the heat off.
6. Assemble by spreading the sweet sticky rice cake mixture onto the prepare bilaos lined with banana leaves. Flatten evenly. Cut the rice cakes into diagonals and top the centres of each diagonal with some latík.
7. Serve, share, and enjoy warm! This recipes makes for about 4 palm-sized bilaos.

ps: apologies for only posting one picture of this dish (as you know it’s unlikely of me to only post one picture of the final dish), but I made this a while back, 2 years ago to be exact, and this was the only picture that I could find *sad face* at least it is a good picture!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx