A steamed cake made in a rice cooker, good for breakfast (especially with coconut flakes on top of it).

Recipe type: Basics, Cake, Dessert
Cuisine: Filipino

So… the results of my cooking experiments, aka, Filipino puto (more or less this recipe, dividing the quantities by 4, switching the amounts of milk and water around, and replacing the margarine by oil). Basically, a simple process: instead of steaming in a steamer, put the mixture in the rice cooker and bake it there… It went mostly well, except for the slight snafu, which had me folding the baking powder into the beaten egg and causing the expanding reaction to be wasted on, er, a beaten egg… Hence the slightly flat look of the thing: it was meant to rise much higher [1]. Also, it’s missing toppings–apparently, grated coconut is nice on it, but the H doesn’t like coconut… But it’s fairly nice all the same.

I do have to add that cooking a cake in the rice cooker is not for the faint of heart: after beating all the ingredients together, you put them into the rice cooker, set it on “cake”, press the button, and trust that the cooker is smart enough to work out the optimal baking time… (yes, I know I’m trusting it to cook perfect rice. Yes, it’s perfectly irrational).

[1] We discussed this on facebook, but I’m not quite sold on the explanation that the thing didn’t rise because of the low temperature and non-stick coating in the cooker–many blogs mention baking cakes in rice cookers with no trouble, and now that I’ve had time to reflect on the whole non-stick thing, I’ve baked cakes in non-stick molds before, and they rose all right… Any pointers welcome, but I’m inclined to suspect my bad timing with the baking powder…