Cassava Cake

The Filipino merienda cake, grated cassava baked with coconut milk under a thick custard topping of coconut cream and condensed milk blistered dark under the grill

Origin: Manila and the Philippines

From the journey of Cassava.

Cassava reached Asia by a completely different route from the one that took it to Africa, and it went the other way round the world to get there. The Manila galleon ran between Acapulco and Manila from 1565 to 1815, and it carried into the Philippines the American plants the Spanish had already established in New Spain and the Caribbean. Cassava, kamoteng kahoy in Tagalog, was among them. It settled as a secondary staple, grown where rice does poorly and eaten most heavily in the Visayas and Mindanao, and the Filipino kitchen did with it what it does with every starch: turned it into kakanin, the enormous family of sweet steamed and baked rice and root cakes eaten at merienda and at every fiesta. Cassava cake is the best known of them. Grated cassava is bound with coconut milk and eggs and baked, then finished with a thick topping of coconut cream and condensed milk that is returned to the heat until it browns and blisters. In its present form it is a genuinely modern dish, since the condensed milk arrived with the Americans after 1898, and it is now the standard contribution to any Filipino gathering anywhere in the world. The pairing with coconut is not incidental. The root is bland, dry, and starchy, and coconut supplies the fat, the sweetness, and the perfume it lacks. It is the same bargain struck in the Kerala kitchen with kappa and, in a savoury key, on the Swahili coast with matapa.

Ingredients

Cake

  • 1 kg grated cassava (frozen grated cassava, thawed and drained)
  • 400 ml coconut milk
  • 200 ml evaporated milk
  • 150 g caster sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 50 g salted butter, melted
  • 80 g sweetened shredded coconut, optional
  • 0.5 tsp fine salt

Topping

  • 200 ml coconut cream
  • 200 ml sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 tbsp cornflour

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180C (fan 160C, gas 4) and butter a 23 by 33 cm baking dish. Squeeze the thawed grated cassava lightly in your hands to shed excess water, but do not wring it dry.
  2. Whisk together the coconut milk, evaporated milk, sugar, eggs, melted butter, and salt until smooth.
  3. Stir in the grated cassava and the shredded coconut if using, breaking up any clumps, until the mixture is even and quite loose.
  4. Pour into the dish and bake for forty-five to fifty minutes, until set through and just beginning to colour at the edges.
  5. While it bakes, whisk the topping ingredients together in a small pan and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, for four to five minutes until thickened to a pourable custard.
  6. Spread the topping evenly over the baked cake and return it to the oven, or under a medium grill, for eight to twelve minutes until the surface is deep golden and blistered in patches.
  7. Cool completely in the dish before cutting into squares.

Notes

Use frozen grated cassava rather than fresh where you can. Fresh roots must be peeled, cored, and grated, which is a substantial job for a kilogram. Grated cassava, not tapioca starch and not cassava flour. This cake is made from the whole root and neither of the milled products will set in the same way. Some versions add a tin of macapuno (coconut sport) strings to the batter, which is common at fiestas and makes it considerably richer. A pinch of salt in the topping is worth adding if your condensed milk is very sweet, and cheese on top is a genuinely traditional Filipino variation that outsiders find startling.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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