It’s a great honor to have Madam Kwong of Madam Kwong’s Kitchen guest posting on Nyonya Food today.
Raised in Penang, Madam Kwong is a retired Nyonya chef currently based in Australia. I have been a secret fan of Madam Kwong’s Kitchen—her gorgeous blog with many authentic and delicious Nyonya/Malaysian recipes.
Please welcome Madam Kwong and her daughter Suz (the photographer) to Nyonya Food with her kuih benka or tapioca/cassava cake recipe. Kuih Bengka is a very delicious Nyonya kuih, one of my late grandmother’s specialties and also my personal favorite. Enjoy!
Firstly, I wish to thank Nyonya Food for inviting me to guest post in her amazing blog. I was so excited when she emailed me and am truly honored. We share something in common, well, besides cooking, speaking the same language or the love of food.
We are both from our beautiful island of Penang, Malaysia.
She wanted me to “cook up” a Nyonya dish. The choice of Nyonya cooking is vast and hard but this recipe is very simple. Oh! She did hint she wanted a kuih. So, I whipped up Kuih Bengka. My daughter, the amateur photographer, Suz took the photos and soon enough ate most of the kuihs.
In the past where there was no electricity, Nyonyas used charcoal to bake Kuih Bengka (Cassava). The top of the kuih would become dark brown.
These days, you can still get the same top crusty effect in a fan forced oven which is caused by the baking process. The kuih is light yellow in colour and has a sweetly scented coconut flavor.
You can even bite into the grated coconut. I used the old fashion wooden coconut grater to grate the coconut in this recipe. Ahhh! Life is hard, knowing that you can buy frozen grated coconut. This is an easy recipe to make and hope you try it as well.
We do hope we’re able to spread the Peranakan culture to the world.
How Many Calories Per Serving?
This recipe is only 511 calories per serving.
Kuih Bengka Recipe ( Tapioca/Cassava Cake)
Kuih Bengka (Tapioca/Cassava Cake)
Ingredients
- 1 kg finely grated cassava, tapioca
- 4 cups sugar
- 1 tin coconut milk and add water to make 1 litre in total
- 3 tablespoons plain flour
- 250 grams freshly grated coconut
Directions
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1Mix the grated cassava, grated coconut and flour in a large mixing bowl.
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2Heat up the coconut milk together with sugar. When the sugar starts to melt, add this mixture into the combined cassava mix. Use a balloon whisk to stir thoroughly.
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3Lastly pour into a 8”X 8”X 3” tin, either lined with grease proof paper (baking paper) or banana leaves.
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4Bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 2 hours.
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Chin
Hi,
How much coconut milk is needed? It’s not stated in the recipe.
Thank you.
Koh Karyn
Sorry but someone must have edited the recipe. Ingredients shown are 1kg finely grated cassava, 4 cups sugar, 1 tin Method…. It doesn’t make sense. Can u please rectify the error. Thanks
Rasa Malaysia
This has always been the recipe. It’s never been changed.
Wong Sharon
How much flour do I need? I don’t seem to see the number of grams mentioned. Thanks.
Rasa Malaysia
You only need 3 tablespoons flour. Click on Jump to Recipe for the recipe.