Kuih Lapis Beras or Kow Teng Kuih aka Nine Layered Kuih

Like many Overseas Singaporeans, cooking a traditional dish without being able to get the main ingredient is a real setback. Believe me, it is usually the main essential ingredient in the recipe that is missing or unavailable. Unless we can find a substitute ingredient and make do with whatever is available locally, we might as well resign and wait until for the next balek kampong to eat and enjoy the real thing. On other hand, it can also be quite rewarding, to produce a replica of the original recipe with a twist of your own. Like this Kow Teng Kuih, we have just cooked for afternoon tea, fresh coconut cream and pandan leaves are required if we follow the original recipe. Even though, both of these ingredients are readily available in the Asian stores at this time of the year, we didn't bother to drive the distance to get them. We simply used canned coconut cream from our pantry and do away with the pandan leaves. Unfortunately, our pandan plant didn't survive the winter cold.



Kuih Lapis Beras or Kow Teng Kuih aka Nine Layered Kuih Recipe.

150 g rice flour
125 g tapioca flour
75 g glutinous rice flour
400 ml can coconut cream
1 cup sugar (300 g sugar)
300 ml water
1 tbsp red food colouring

Sift the rice flour,sugar, tapioca and glutinous rice flour into a mixing bowl. Add in coconut cream and water and mix well. Divide the batter into two portions. Colour one portion red.Heat steamer and heat a well greased round pan (8 inches or 20cm) for 5 minutes. Pour half a cup of white batter onto the heated pan and coat it evenly to about 5mm thick and steam for 5 minutes or until set. Repeat and alternating the white and red batter until all the portion are used up.After steaming the last layer, steam it for another 15 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting as desired and serve.When I was a child, I used to peel the kuih layer by layer to eat them.