biko – Adventures of Sweet Monday

While visiting my parents, my mom showed me how to make bibingka, which is a Filipino Rice cake. When I was little, my favorite Filipino dessert was bibingka. So I was excited to learn how to make this delicious dessert.

I noticed, however, that my mom was using a biko recipe to make bibingka. I actually never even heard of biko so I was curious to know the difference between biko and bibingka. I googled it and found out that biko is made from glutinous rice (usually combination of black rice and white sweet rice) and is topped with Latik, which is fried coconut milk curd. Bibingka is made from white glutinous rice and topped with caramelized sugar and coconut cream.

My mom used this biko recipe and modified it into a bibingka recipe by topping it with coconut milk and brown sugar and then caramelizing it. Here is the recipe:

Mom’s recipe for bibingka

Ingredients:

2 cups sweet glutinous rice
2 cups of water
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 cups of coconut milk
Anise (optional)
Pinch of salt
Rounded banana leaf (optional)

You will need a rice cooker for this recipe.

Directions:

Wash sweet rice and drain. Add 2 cups of water and cook the sweet rice in the rice cooker.

While the rice is cooking in the rice cooker, place the coconut milk, brown sugar, anise and a pinch of salt in a sauce pan and bring to a boil making sure that the sugar is completely dissolved.

After the mixture has come to a boil, lower the flame to a medium low and then cook for 30 more minutes. Stir occasionally until mixture thickens. Once it thickens, make sure to stir consistently.

Once you are finished cooking the mixture, remove the anise. In addition, take out 1/3 cup of the mixture and set aside. This will be your topping.

Add the cooked sweet rice to the rest of the mixture in the saucepan and then cook for another 10 minutes under medium low heat. Mix thoroughly.