Home > Mung Bean Cake with Grated Coconut

Mung Bean Cake with Grated Coconut

Posting Date: 07/30/18

Mung Bean Cake with Grated Coconut's recipe is inspired by Kue Ongol Ongol's recipe. Instead of using tapioca flour, I use mung bean flour. I even made the flour myself by grinding the peeled split mung beans in the spice grinder. Before grinding the beans, I roasted them in the oven at 400 deg F for about 5 min. This added strong nutty flavor of the mung bean to the flour. Instead of making the flour yourself, you can buy it in Asian store if you can find it. If you decide to make the flour yourself, you can find peeled split mung beans in Asian stores. Make sure you buy the peeled mung beans. Peeled split mung beans are yellow in color while the unpeeled mung beans are green.

This cake is perfect to accompany your tea or coffee. The sweetness of the palm sugar and the flavor of grated coconut complement the tea or coffee flavor. It is also perfect for dessert.

To make the cake, you need to cook the batter until it is very thick and sticky. At that point, the batter should have no moisture or runny liquid anymore. If you stop it too early, you can still make the cake. However, it is more crumbly than when the batter is very thick and sticky. You will need patience making it because the batter needs to be continuously stir to make sure the flour is not sticking to the bottom of the pot causing it to burn. I found that using non-stick pot could reduce the flour from sticking too much to the bottom. In addition, using low heat also prevents the flour from burning even when it is slightly sticking. At the end, it is worthwhile to make this cake because it makes your tea time more enjoyable.

The recipe serves for about 4 people.

Ingredients:

For flour mixture: 120 grams mung bean flour
For flour mixture: 350 ml water
vegetable oil to brush Al foil
For sugar syrup: 160 grams palm sugar. You can substitute with brown sugar if you cannot find it in Asian store. Some people grate the palm sugar to make it easier to dissolve when cooking. I don't do it because I buy smaller size of palm sugar that can be easily broken off once it becomes soften during cooking.
For sugar syrup: 95 grams granulated sugar
For sugar syrup: 400 ml water
For sugar syrup: pinch of salt
For coconut coating: 50 grams grated coconut. You can substitute with frozen grated coconut or unsweetened coconut flakes. If using frozen grated coconut, defrost it in the fridge for 24 hours prior to using.
For coconut coating: pinch of salt
For coconut coating: 2 pandan leaves. If you cannot find it, you can skip it.

Methods:

Combine mung bean flour and 350 ml water in a bowl. Whisk so that the flour mixture becomes smooth without any lump.
Prepare 8"x4" pan by lining it with Al foil. Make sure you have Al overhang on every side so that it will be easy to remove. Brush evenly the Al foil with vegetable oil so that the cake will not stick. Make sure you don't brush it with too much oil because we don't want the cake to be greasy.
Put palm sugar, granulated sugar, and 400 ml water in a non-stick pot. Make sure you use non-stick pot so that the flour will not stick to the bottom of the pot and become burned. Heat the pot on a stove over medium high heat. Stir the pot to dissolve the granulated sugar. Once the water becomes hot and palm sugar becomes softer, you may want to use a spoon to break off the palm sugar into small pieces so that it can dissolve faster. Once the liquid is boiling, add a pinch of salt and reduce the heat to medium low. Stir the liquid from time to time so that palm sugar can completely dissolve. Once the sugar has completely been dissolved, reduce the heat to low and add flour mixture into the sugar syrup. Stir right after adding the flour mixture to make sure the flour mixture is well combined. From time to time, stir the batter using high temperature spatula to make sure it is not sticking to the bottom. Continue cooking the batter on low heat until it becomes really thick and very sticky and you cannot stir it anymore. At that point, the batter should have reduced a lot and you should not see any moisture or runny liquid on the batter anymore. Remove the pot from the heat. Place the batter on a 8"x4" pan. Spread the batter on the pan using a spatula. Cool it down inside the pan for at least half an hour.
While waiting for the cake to cool down, mix grated coconut with a pinch of salt. Put the coconut inside a steamer. Steam it for 10 min. Pour the coconut on a plate.
Once the cake is cool down, put the Al foil out of the pan. Place the cake on a cutting board. slice the cake to bite size cube or your preferred size. Coat each side of the slice with coconut. Serve it right away. If you have any left over, you can keep it in a sealed ziploc bag for about 3 days.

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