Spekkoek!

And?? What do you think of the new design and the new logo? Nice? Not so nice? Horrible? You can tell me, I promise not to burst into tears straight away. I am very happy with it in any case. Regula from Miss Foodwise made the pretty logo (which ofcourse had to have a cat in there) and Inge from Windward Handmade designed the rest based on the Prophoto theme. That turned out to be a bit more complicated then I had initially hoped for but I think she did a great job!

Time for a little party I would say and as luck would have it Esmee was here today and we spend the day drinking cooking. I was cutting the onions for our pulled pork at the ridiculous hour of 7 am (recipe will follow later!) Not something I would recommend on an empty stomach. It’s a bit weird too cutting onions (and crying your eyes out in the process) in your nightgown, but hey… you got to be prepared to do it if you want to eat well!

We cooked up a storm and on the cooking menu we had; pulled pork, vindaloo (hot curry), kue lapis, coleslaw and – YES! – real spekkoek. For those who don’t know yet Esmee has some Indonesian blood running through her veins so she grew up wth the stuff. I sure did not.

My mom was of the dry supermarket cake and she certainly was not very charmed of spending hours in front of a hot oven, adding layer after layer to spekkoek. I am guessing that back in those days, it wasn’t very well known in the Netherlands but I could be wrong. In any case I had to travel to Malaysia to taste my first spekkoek which happened to be a pandan variety (green) and that does have a very different taste then this spiced one. I prefer one with spices any day but if you like pandan there will be a pandan based recipe on the blog soon!

These days you just have to hop over to the asian supermarket and you can easily buy ready made spekkoek but making it myself sounded like a lot of fun. Ofcourse I had no idea how that was supposed to be made but I quickly learned it mostly involved a lot of waiting and baking layer by layer.

But first… Dough had to be made. Sixteen eggs…. Sixteen eggs ladies and gentlemen! Oh and while we’re at it, let’s add 750 grams of butter as well. Now the whisking of 16 eggwhites requires a large bowl and I was afraid that at some point my Kitchenaid would overflow but it stayed in… barely! Whisking 750 grams of butter was another fun thing and took quite some time to get it creamy and fluffy… Adding the other stuff was easy but then the eggwhites needed to be folded in..;)let me just tell you that a. you need a really big bowl and b. you might have sore arms afterwards!

The whole process took a couple of hours so make sure you have enough time if you want to give this a try too!

We used a caketin of 28 cm diameter and it was filled to the brim and remember it is a huge caloric bomb… So Es’ got half of the cake and I had half but still, it is way too much. So giving a little party with this for a treat seamed the only possible way to share it. So to celebrate the new design here you have a little piece for everyone. And if you’re unlucky and it is all gone, you can always decide to make it yourself!

Little party with spekkoek (lapis legit or layered cake)

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Prep time 30 minutes
Cooking time 2 hours

20

Ingredients

  • 16 eggs
  • 750 gr butter at roomtemperature
  • 400 gr caster sugar
  • 200 gr plain flour
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp cloves
  • 1 tsp cardemom
  • 2 tsp nutmeg

  • Preheat the oven to about 180 C. (if you have a non fan forced option, go for that)
  • Split all eggs and put the eggwhites into a large (greasefree) bowl and adding a pinch of salt, whisk them until they are stiff.
  • In another bowl whisk the butter until soft and creamy. Add the eggyolks here and whisk until combined. Ad the sugar and lastly ad the flour in parts. Whisk until all is combined well.
  • Add the eggwhites into the bowl and fold them through until well combined. It’s a big amount so you’re gonna need a huge bowl.
  • Divide the dough across two different bowls and add the spices in the one half. Take a large tin (well greased, and putting baking paper at the bottom helps too) and spread your first layer on the bottom of the pan. Make it as thin as possible and starting with a dark layer is best.
  • Put this into the preheated oven for about 4 minutes. Remove from the oven and add the second layer. it will melt a little bit when you ad it onto the warm cake but that is ok. It will spread evenly when it gets hot in the oven. The more layers you have the longer the cooking will need to be. After filling about half of your tin you might need to increase the time to 6 minutes per layer. It can also puff up in the oven and if that is the case wait for a minute until it deflates again before adding your next layer.
  • Continue until all the dough is finished or your tin is completely full. If necessary or when you think the middle is not yet quite cooked, put it back in for a few more minutes. When ready take out of the oven and remove the outer ring as soon as you can. When cool enough turn upside down and leave to cool on a cake rack.

Disclaimer

The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.

Did you make this recipe?Mention @insimoneskitchen_ or tag #insimoneskitchen!

 

And because it is ‘animalday’ here in Holland I just had to show you a photo of dear Humphrey!

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Simone van den Berg

Food blogger from the Netherlands. Loves good food. Likes to create healthy and easy recipes for daily use, but also loves the occasional sweet dish. Lives in the Netherlands with her two cats; Humphrey and Buffy. Profession: Food photographer, food blogger, recipe developer and nutritionist