Baking Bebinca

Chef extraordinaire` Amy Grey at work mixing batter for our Goan dessert Bebinca. It can best be described as an Indian Halwa that has hybrid Portuguese influences noteably in the spice blend that is incorporates - nutmeg and cardamom. For those not familiar with what Halwa is - comparable to Turkish delight, but firmer and not dusted with sugar.

Our last week of Gastronomic Tourism called for presentations on a created food festival. Amy and I paired up and came up with a Goan Food Festival to be held at Carnival time - February. We made bebinca as a smapler to take in and woo our lecturer! :0

This is the ready batter and ghee (clarified butter) that Amy made herself!!!

Bibinca Recipe:

2 cup Maida

1 ½ cup Sugar

6 Egg yolks

1 cup Thick coconut milk

¼ tsp Cardamom and nutmeg powder each

1/3 cup, approx Melted ghee

Mix maida with, cardamom and nutmeg powder. Combine sugar with ½ cup water. Dissolve over a low flame, simmer for two minutes and remove from fire and cool to room temperature. Beat the yolks lightly and mix with coconut milk. Add sugar syrup and coconut milk mixture to maida and make a smooth batter. Pour 1 tbsp of ghee in a deep 8" square baking dish. Place the dish in a moderately hot oven. When the ghee gets hot, pour a thin layer of batter in it. When it sets, pour some ghee again and then some batter. Use all the batter thus. Cool and cut bibinca into slices.

In the round blue baking dish is Amy's orange cake that is so delicious. It doesn't use flour nor sugar, just eggs, three whole oranges and alot of yummy spices. The rectangualar dish is our Bebinca after about four layers of slow baking.

We used six egg yolks for the bebinca and were leftover with the whites. And well no one like waste - so Amy came up with a simple, yet divine Spanish inspired omlette with sprouts, philli cream cheese oozing out of the foldover and utterly magical pumpkin puree ! I mean it was so velvety, and tasted as if it were laced with creme and butter - without all the calories! I need to go over to Amy's more often....
The finished product - Amy's spice orange cake is perfect and we dig in for a slice with a cuppa coffee after a long day of putting together our presentaion! Pay off is SO sweet!