Nommable roots?

EAT IT! Chock full o' healthy good stuff (of god knows what) and chewy-ishly yummy at the same time. Know what it is? ? Cassava. Cassava roots, in a cake. I've come across a couple odd cakes or two, (make way for POTAHTO cake!)  but this one was sort of familiar, because it's also called Cassava Bibinka. *What a coincidence! I like bibinka!* Cassava Cake is from the Philipines, where cassava roots are abundantly found. Here in North America, not so much. Except maybe in Mexico, I've never been there. I found this wonderfully easy cassava cake recipe, which only requires you to take a short trip down to your local Filipino goods store or T&T if you have it there.

***If you don't want to scroll all the way through the posts, I'll put the recipe in a clump down below.***

What you need is;

2 packages of frozen grated Cassava.
1 bottle Macapuno (coconut strips)
1 can condensed milk
1 can coconut milk
1/4 cup butter/margarine, melted.

You'll need to defrost the cassava packages in the fridge overnight, or in the microwave, first. A bunch of water will leak out, so be sure you put it in a bowl. For the Macapuno, you can just use 1/2 the bottle, if you've got a superbly keen addiction of sweetness, feel free to put the whole bottle in!

preservatives much? ;)

This makes a 2-quart dish of cassava cake. First, preheat your oven to 350F. Then mix together your melted butter and cassava in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. This could also be done with a mixer, but being lazy, I just stirred the heck out of it with a wooden spoon. The butter MUST MUST MUST be really well mixed in! Or else you'll form pools of melted butter on the top of the cake whilst you're baking and it'll basically fry the top of your cake. Now mix in the condensed milk and coconut milk:

GLOOP!! Condensed milk.

This reminds me of Coconut Bubble Tea. Mmmm...

And add your Macapuno strings.

WORMS???

Now mix it into something cake-batter looking.

Lumpy cakes!

I lined my glass baking dish on the bottom with banana leaves, since I had some on hand. If you don't have any, just grease the bottom and sides very, very, well. This cassava cake likes to stick.

That leaf doesn't look so square :(

Now pop it in the oven!

Bake it for 1-1/2 hours. The original recipe said 45 minutes, but it wasn't even close to done. I suggest you just put it in for at least an hour, and bake it until it doesn't look like soup in the middle anymore.

Voila!

Golden brown to perfection! (I think) A tip: some people like to put cheese on top of it. If you want to try, just lightly sprinkle it with cheese and pop it back into the oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese melts.

I hope everyone tries this, because it's a culturally different type of cake, and something worth trying. Bye!


Oh, and the condensed version of the recipe:

2 packages Frozen Grated Cassava (thawed)

1 Bottle Macapuno (coconut strings)

1 Can Condensed Milk

1 Can Coconut Milk

¼ Cup Butter (melted)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix together the cassava and the butter until thoughroughly combined. Mix in everything else, and pour into a well-greased/banana leaf line 2 quart baking dish. Bake for 1-1 1/2 hours.