The Great British Baking Show's Sarawak Style Cake–can I make a kek lapis?

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Last week I watched the Great British Baking Show episode 7, “Festival Week” in which the contestants have to make a Sarawak style cake.  When the hosts announced that this was a cake in which the layers were grilled, my jaw dropped, wondering if they were going to have stove-top grills, or set up outdoors.

It turns out “grilled” is a Britishism for “broiled” (or else “broiled” is an Americanism for “grilled”–you know what I mean.) Even so, I’d never seen a cake broiled layer by layer, nor one that gets cut up and reassembled like a strip-pieced quilt to create colorful geometric patterns. It seemed such an odd way to create a thinly layered, colorful cake that of course I had to try the technique myself.

I had no ambitions to go the whole way and create a mosaic made of cake. I just wanted to make a colorful layered cake using this completely new (to me) method. So I looked up some recipes.

Quite a few of the recipes for sarawak kek lapis were not in English, which makes sense since it is apparently a Malaysian specialty. I did find one in English that didn’t take a dozen eggs to make–only seven. (Kek Lapis–Indonesian Layer Cake.) The layers weren’t colored and it seemed very mildly spiced, but I tried it, adding orange zest and cardamom and food coloring to make alternating layers.

Unfortunately, I was so nervous about overcooking the layers that I ended up undercooking them. When I tasted the edges, I realized that I hadn’t flavored it enough either. It did have pretty layers, though, where they weren’t gooey and underbaked.

Attempt at a sarawak kek lapis style cake with pink and yellow layersView of the layers of attempt at sarawak kek lapis cake

Something about the process of piling batter upon partially cooked batter made me think of pancakes. You know how the underside of a pancake shows where the first scoop of batter landed, and where subsequent additions of batter spread out from it? I decided to try making a version of kek lapis using pancake batter. I used an extra egg, thinking it would cook more quickly that way, and some extra sugar (pancakes aren’t very sweet by themselves.) I divided the batter into four bowls and colored them brightly.

I did get layers, albeit very, very uneven ones, and I did cook it all the way through. However, the result was very eggy, like the inside of a popover, only heavier. While I like popovers, I don’t like heavy, eggy cakes. The second try at a Sarawak style cake ended up in the compost like the first.

A four-layered attempt at making a sarawak style cake using pancake batter in green, yellow, pink and blue

Finally I decided to use a familiar cake recipe, a hot-milk sponge cake from the Better Homes and Gardens (1996) cookbook. It’s a very sweet cake, but reasonably airy and light on butter, so I thought it might do. Also, it requires only two eggs and doesn’t require that the whites be separated out and whipped, which makes it a lot easier that the first kek lapis recipe. I added orange zest, then divided the batter into four bowls and added cocoa powder to two of them and food coloring to the other two.

Oops–stirring in the cocoa and food coloring definitely took away some of the carefully fluffed up volume. As the bowls of batter sat waiting their turn in the oven, I could see bubbles appearing on the surface. Not good. Perhaps I should have waited to stir in the color of each bowl until just before pouring it into the pan.

After baking–I mean broiling–the layers, I put the cake in the center of the oven at a more usual 350 to finish baking. I didn’t want another underbaked cake.

The result? Very uneven layers, but layers nonetheless. And with the orange zest, cocoa powder, and huge amount of sugar–a moderately tasty cake.

Hot-milk sponge cake with orange and cocoa layers, broiled like sarawak cake

I’m not sure when I would actually need such a cake, but perhaps I might want squares of colorful cake for some festive occasion.

Squares of hot-milk sponge cake with orange and cocoa layers, broiled like sarawak cake

Now that I’ve finally created an edible cake in the style of sarawak kek lapis–or at least the first stage of a kek lapis–I think I can move on to other baked goods. Time to watch some more Great British Baking Show!

Till next post.

The Mini-Backpack, Round Two

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Some time ago, I sewed a mini-backpack that was loosely based on the mini-backpack I use regularly as a purse. I always meant to have another try, hoping to produce a mini-backpack that was more attractive, less floppy, and lined. Finally, here’s attempt number two.

The denim mini-backpack.

I think it came out pretty well, despite some problems during sewing. In the photo, it is stuffed to make it look better, but it retains some shape even empty. For one thing, I used plastic “string” from the string trimmer (e.g. Weed Whacker) to give the back edge some stiffness.

I did try a lining this time, though I didn’t line the entire inside. Ideally, the lining would have pockets. Maybe the next version will.

View of backpack lining.

The problems I ran into varied from the difficulty of dealing with heavy denim (thank goodness for the sewing machine with walking foot!) to problems with measurements to getting the adjustable strap hardware to work.

Some of these measurements are wrong.

That last problem had a lot to do with the straps being made of heavy denim. I couldn’t figure out a way to make them without a thick ridge running down the strap somewhere. I have an idea for next time, though. I think I’ll try folding the sides in and having them meet in the middle without actually sewing them to each other. There’ll be a thin gap running down the center of the strap, but if I zigzag the sides together, maybe it won’t be constantly bending in half.

The other thing I want to say about this bag is that it is mostly reused material. The denim came from old jeans, the lining from an old sheet, and the zipper was salvaged from one of those plastic zip bags that bedding and curtains often sold in. The plastic “string” was from our old string trimmer. The new materials were the strap hardware, some seam binding to encase the “string”, and the iron-on crystals decorating the front.

Till next post.

That Smells Good!–the changing appeal of scents, in and out of context

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Windowsill display of lemon, rosewater, and peppermint candies

Peppermint, cinnamon, lemon–what do these scents have in common? Not much, considered strictly in terms of how they smell. One is minty, one is spicy, and the last one is citrusy. But they are all flavors as well, and I like them both as flavors and as fragrances.

That last connection isn’t automatic. Not every delicious food aroma is also good as a fragrance in its own right. For instance, the smell of chocolate–of brownies baking–is heavenly when I anticipate that I may get to eat some of them. Chocolate-scented stationery, however, does nothing for me. I’d rather perfume it with bergamot.

Oddly, I feel this distinction even more strongly when it comes to vanilla. I like the smell of vanilla in cookie dough or pudding, but I really dislike vanilla-scented candles, air fresheners, and heavily vanilla-based perfumes. Given how many of these vanilla-scented items are out there, I am clearly in the minority on this.

Most people (including me) would be reluctant to perfume their clothes or hair with the odor of sauteed onions and garlic. Onion-scented air-freshener? Ick. And yet, when I walk into the house and discover that the kitchen is fragrant with sauteed onions and garlic, my mouth waters and I say, “Wow, that smells good!” And it does. But only in the right context.

There are other fragrances that are pleasant so long as they aren’t in a food context. For some people, rose is one of these, while other people like rosewater-flavored desserts. I’m guessing that no one really wants their food to smell of lilacs or hyacinths, though, or Chanel No. 5. Bleah.

Is there any context that affects the appeal of a scent besides food? People do develop a familiarity with some scents in a cleaning context (lemon, peppermint), but nonetheless cleaning products do manage to be popular in a variety of other fragrances (floral, grapefruit, lavender, “sea salt”,…) Maybe personal fragrance–do we really want our bodies to smell like peppermint candy? Peppermint soaps and lotions certainly exist, but I’m having trouble imagining a perfume called “Fresh Mint Seduction” or “Lemon Heat”.

Can you think of any other contexts?

Till next post.