This is an experimental recipe which I have meant to try for the longest time. My family is a big fan of Pulut Hitam, the black glutinous rice with a unique fragrance and texture that pairs so wonderfully well with coconut milk. Quite some time back, I had actually made this to go with durian pulp. Today, I am trying to incorporate this exotic ingredient into a pound cake recipe. In fact,I have chosen to use Tish Boyle’s pound cake recipe as a starting point.
The way I have experimented with this recipe is pre-cooking the ground Pulut Hitam with water into a paste. This was then added into the pound cake recipe. The cream used in the original recipe was replaced by coconut cream to complement the black glutinous rice. What I have noticed is that this recipe appears to be wetter which had it take longer than the standard 60 minutes to bake. I had to extend the baking by a further 10-15 mins to get it to completely dry up. This resulted in a crust that is somewhat harder than I would like to see or perhaps it is the mold that I am using that is resulting in the hardened crust. If I could use a lined pound cake mould, I could possibly reduce the degree of browning on the crust. Also, I would like to find a way to disperse the pulut hitam paste, which tends to be a bit sticky and elastic upon cooking to avoid it sedimenting.
The texture, of this recipe is very fine, almost Kueh like. The flavour, thanks to the wonderful grade of Pulut Hitam I managed to buy, (loved the rich purple colour of the flour upon grinding) was delicious! I do intend to expriment further with the flour to Pulut Hitam ratio. For now, I leave you with this short post as I am on the road now and something to ponder about for your next baking experiment.
- 50g Plain flour
- ⅛tsp Baking powder
- ⅛tsp Salt
- 112g Unsalted butter (softened)
- 80g Castor sugar
- 2 Large eggs
- 40ml Coconut cream
- 50g Ground Pulut Hitam(Black glutinous rice)
- 10g Glutinous rice flour
- 120g Water
- Prepare the Pulut Hitam paste by mixing the ground pulut hitam, glutinous rice flour and water together. Cover and rest the flour mixture in the refrigerator overnight to allow the flour to sediment.
- Carefully drain off as much of the water at the top of the flour paste.
- Microwave the paste at high power for 1 minute. Set aside to cool.
- Preheat oven to 160C.
- Sift remaining flour with baking powder and salt and set aside.
- Cream butter in mixer at medium high speed until creamy. (about 2 mins) Add sugar gradually and continue beating for 4mins until light and fluffy.
- Reduce mixing speed and add eggs one at a time and mix until well combined.
- Add Pulut Hitam paste from (2) and mix to blend well.
- Add in flour in 2 additions alternating with coconut cream.
- Pour into a lined pound cake mould and bake for 70-90mins. (check doneness of cake at 70mins to determine if you need to extend baking time)
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Perhaps you should use a gluten free recipe as your base to work with. I’ve seen some using rice flour so I’m sure you could substitute them, your cake looks a bit like the tapioca kueh, the yellow chewy one.
Hey Joe, Thanks for the rice flour suggestion… I will definitely keep that in mind. This recipe still tastes like a cake. A fine textured pound cake – so it is not exactly dense or chewy like the tapioca kueh- but I agree, the appearance is still not homogenous.
I still dared not bake with PH again… a bit worried about the buckwheat like texture.
Hi Wendy. Yes, I have heard so much about the sandy texture when baking with ground pulut hitam… that’s why I chose to precook it first… almost there…. I will tweak a bit more…
Looks like kueh as Joe said, color looks nice though…would like to see how you tweak it, interesting flavors.
Hi Jeannie… definitely will be tweaking it. It may look like kueh but it still tastes like a cake
Very interesting recipe! I believe the combination pulut hitam with coconut milk certainly bring up nice flavour to the cake
Hi Doris! Will be tweaking it a bit more. Hey, thanks for the pulut hitam flour. I finished using it while experimenting on chiffon cake… so I don’t think I will be able to find it in Singapore anymore. But grinding it from pulut hitam grains itself is pretty easy to do too…
Wow, what a brave experiment but kudos for pulling it off. It looks fantastic..
Bravo..
thanks, Gerry. I will be tweaking a few more things in the recipe.
Very interesting recipe. I am a big fan of Pulut Hitam too!!! At 1st look, i thought it was chocolate ice-cream cake due to the texture and colour but I am sure it taste just as good as what you have mentioned. I would like to give this a go to
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What a great idea! I love pulot hitam too. Will have to give this a shot one day. Good luck with the experiments!
Have you tried coconut flour to obsorbe some of your extra moisture. Use 1/2cup will obsorbe about1/2 cup of liquid.just use 1/2 cup less of your regular flour. Don’t use any more then a 1/2 cup of Coconut flour
Thanks so much for this interesting recipe. I just tried it using Pulut Hitam flour and it tasted great. Yours looks much more interesting.
thanks, Jane…