Baked Putu Ayu

My experiments with bolu kukus (steamed cupcakes) left me with few leftover egg whites, and these cupcakes were the result.

What does putu ayu exactly mean? Hmm, good question. Putu in Javanese (I grow up in the Java island) means grandchild. Ayu means beautiful, good-looking, pretty. Perhaps it got its name from its usual bundt shape, which is prettier than normal cupcakes (given that both are not frosted or decorated). Or perhaps it was the coconut. Putu ayu can be said as an upside-down coconut steamed cake, and to me the white coconut shreds contrasting to the shy-green cake looks pretty.

The base cake recipe is taken from my go-to muffin/quick bread recipe. I only had the yogurt replaced with coconut milk (in smaller amount to prevent the batter being too runny) and the whole egg replaced with egg whites. The result was amazing. The cakes had a very delicate texture from the whipped egg whites.

Baked Putu Ayu
makes 9

100 gr plain flour
75 gr sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
50 ml vegetable oil
90 ml coconut milk
1/2 tsp pandan paste or vanilla extract
2 egg whites

50 gr shredded coconut
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg white

1. Preheat oven to 180C and prepare a cupcake/muffin pan. In a bowl, mix shredded coconut, 1/8 tsp salt and egg white. Divide evenly into 9 cups, pressing firmly to compact them up.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Make a hole in the center. Pour oil, coconut milk and pandan paste (or vanilla extract). Mix lightly until most of the dry ingredients are moistened.
3. In a clean bowl, whip 2 egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whipped whites into the flour mixture to lighten, then fold in the rest of egg whites. Divide batter evenly onto the muffin cups.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick test comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then invert to a plate.

Putu ayu is usually eaten plain without any icing, but being a lover of pandan-palm sugar combo, I decided to whip up a little amount of icing. You can drizzle the cakes with palm sugar syrup or you can make the following icing if you are feeling a bit fancy.

Palm sugar syrup
25 gr palm sugar
2 tsp water

1. Microwave on high for 10 seconds, then smooth out any remaining lumps with a spoon. Cool.

Palm sugar icing
120 gr icing sugar
2-3 tsp palm sugar syrup (recipe as above), warm

1. Add palm sugar syrup by teaspoons to the icing sugar until it reached the desired consistency. Pour onto each cooled putu ayu and smooth out the top.