Kue Rangi (Coconut Sago Cakes Baked Without Oil)

Variations

• Fruit in the syrup: Korean Wikipedia notes that chopped jackfruit, pineapple or durian is sometimes stirred into the syrup for flavour and aroma.
• Without a mould: some street sellers make it without the special mould. Pressed into rounds in a cast-iron pan it is the same cake in a different shape.
• Over charcoal: the name itself is about the fire. Kue rangi is short for digarang wangi, and garang means cooking over charcoal without oil. Street sellers bake it on a small charcoal stove.

Tips

• No oil in the mould. Korean Wikipedia gives the reason: no oil is added because the grated coconut becomes oil and a thick coconut milk that binds the batter by itself.
• The fat comes out without a press. Urap puts coconut milk like this: "Making milk means pulling the fat and water out of the flesh and discarding the flesh." And of its own way, keeping the flesh whole: "With nothing extracted there is no emulsion to break, and the oil and aroma stay inside the shreds and burst as you chew them." Rendang reduces the milk for two hours until the oil comes out: "The coconut milk splitting is the doneness sign, where elsewhere it is the failure to avoid." Kue rangi puts both in one mould. The flesh is not thrown away but stays in the cake, and the hot mould draws its oil and milk out of it.
• Which is why the coconut is mature. The main ingredients Korean Wikipedia lists are ripe coconut, tapioca starch, sago, a little salt and water. The flesh is what has to give up the oil and milk, so use grated flesh from a hard, mature coconut rather than a soft young one.
• Only a few spoonfuls of water. Papeda pours boiling water onto sago starch to make a glue, and as that page puts it, "Papeda uses the same move with four times the water, cooking all of it, so there is no dough left to knead, only glue." Here you stop when the mixture is damp sand. The starch cooks in the heat of the mould and the milk from the coconut, and the sago, per Korean Wikipedia, is what makes it chewy.
• Put the lid on. The article says the lid goes on so it cooks quickly. The bottom browns against dry iron while the top cooks in the trapped steam, and that browned bottom is where the toasty taste comes from, which the article credits to this way of cooking. It is the same side of coconut as the serundeng of kerak telor, the same grated coconut dry-fried in a pan.
• Thicken the syrup with starch. Palm-sugar syrup thickened with a little tapioca starch is the tradition. A thin syrup soaks in and wets the top; a thick one stays on it (thickening sauces).
• Use the batter the same day. Korean Wikipedia is clear that the batter spoils easily, cannot be kept, and must all be used within a day. Mix only as much as you need and keep the rest in the fridge.