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Kutsinta (Steamed Brown Sugar Rice Cakes Set with Lye Water)

Name: Kutsinta (Steamed Brown Sugar Rice Cakes Set with Lye Water)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 120 g rice flour; 60 g tapioca starch; 150 g brown sugar; 500 ml water; 1 tsp food-grade lye water (lihiya); 0.5 tsp annatto powder; 1 tsp oil; 100 g freshly grated coconut

A Filipino steamed rice cake: rice or tapioca flour mixed with brown sugar and lye water (lihiya), coloured orange with annatto and steamed in small moulds. Where puto is doughy, kutsinta is jelly-like and chewy, and only mildly sweet. Eaten with freshly grated coconut.

Ingredients

6servings

Steps

Stir the brown sugar and annatto powder into the water until dissolved.
⏲ 2 min
Pour the sugar water into the rice flour and tapioca starch a little at a time, whisking to a smooth batter with no lumps.
⏲ 3 min
Stir in the lye water and leave it 15 minutes.
⏲ 15 min
Oil the small moulds lightly, stir the batter again and fill each three-quarters full.
⏲ 3 min
Steam over medium heat 25-30 minutes, until a skewer in the middle comes out clean and the cakes look translucent.
⏲ 28 min
Let them cool completely in the moulds. They firm up into their chew as they cool. Run a knife round the edge to turn them out.
⏲ 30 min
Top with the grated coconut, or serve it alongside.
⏲ 1 min

Variations

With latik. Pour over coconut syrup (latik) for more sweetness.
With yema. Some dip it in a sweet egg-yolk custard (yema).
All tapioca. Leave out the rice flour and use only tapioca starch for a clearer, chewier cake.
Neighbours. Burmese mont kywe the and Indonesian and Malaysian kuih kosui are close relatives.

Tips

Food-grade lye water only, measured exactly. Too much turns it bitter.
Turn them out only when completely cold. Warm, they are soft.
Add the coconut just before eating. Freshly grated coconut spoils quickly, so eat it the same day.
It is meant to be only mildly sweet.

More detail and the reasons why (1)

The same lye, a different job. Mooncake puts lye water in the shell for colour. In suman, the variation suman sa lihiya mixes a little lye water into the rice, "which turns it amber and chewier." Kutsinta makes that chew the whole cake. It starts from flour rather than whole grain, so the lye spreads evenly through the batter, and nothing goes in to make it rise. That is why puto, the other steamed rice cake, is doughy and kutsinta is jelly-like and chewy.