Nyonya Kaya

Sitting here and typing out a post at this time of the morning is sheer madness. Unfortunately I'm not able to sleep as my little one has caught the sniffles. She was fine just yesterday till we met up with some ballet mates for a 'thank you' lunch organised by the teacher, in appreciation of our dedication in making the funfair a success. She was playing for hours with a little girl who, towards the end, I realised was sick. :( Have just given her her favourite Dimetapp but she doesn't seem to be nodding off to dreamland. Kids are addicted to this stuff. My little nephew too professes it to be his favourite medicine and so does my girl. How did they make medicine taste this good?? She'll even want to have it when she's well. Lol. But of course she's not allowed. ;P

On to my topic - kaya. I've had this recipe handed to me more than 10yrs ago and it's the first time I'm using it. A quick search on google showed up many others who have made and written about it in 2006. I'm 2yrs late. Lol. Having been told that it was tedious and it involved many hours slaving and stirring over the stove, I was hesitant in preparing it. That's the reason it took over 10yrs. Also, I don't have anymore space to store a double boiler on top of my tons of appliances. However, little princess was introduced to kaya by her dad earlier this year and she loves this coconut jam. I had tried introducing it to her a couple of years before but she didn't take to it. This I have to blame her school for feeding her lots of jam sandwiches. She never liked fruit jams too. And I wasn't too bothered by it as the less sweet stuff she took, the better. So, while we were at a bakery one day, I think it was Han's, she wanted me to buy a bottle of it. Alas, all they had was the bigger bottle and how were we supposed to finish it all within a week? So I decided to make some for my princess. Besides, I never liked the ones sold outside. They are too smooth and sweet for my liking. I love mine with the lumpy texture and making it at home, you can reduce the amount of sugar. A friend of mine made it the same week I did and she says you shouldn't reduce it too much or the kaya wouldn't last. It acts as a kind of preservative?

My recipe calls for 10eggs. A little too much considering the sites I've checked out listed 1 cup or some said 4-5 eggs. I'm not sure what kind of results those will yield, maybe smoother texture? Best I stick to what I know works for me. In the first picture, it shows the lumpy texture of the kaya that I like. Some say you are supposed to blend the kaya at the end to achieve a smooth paste, some others say that you need to stir it constantly from the minute you dump all the ingredients into the pot. I've discovered that it is not that tough after all, to make kaya. In fact it's pretty easy except it takes hours.

In the 2nd picture, it shows the double boiler that I created. I placed a smaller pot into a big pot. I then tied a tea towel over the cover to prevent water droplets from forming and dripping into the kaya mixture.

The ingredients I used were -
10 eggs, beaten
1 coconut (I used the ready coconut milk from the chiller section of the supermarket)
600g sugar
pandan leaves, tied into a knot and bruised a little

Method -
I put everything into the pot and steamed it for 3-1/2hrs, stirring now and then till cooked. As I made it at night, it was only ready after 10pm. I left it to cool while I went to bed and filled them in jars in the morning and then refrigerated them.

I didn't have the local kopitiam bread on hand. Thus we had them on plain white bread. It tasted gorgeous, just the way I remembered it.