Gula Melaka Cake
This post is sponsored by CakeRush, an online cake delivery service based in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Many thanks to them for sponsoring this creative cooking adventure, and for prompting me to make a cake centered around gula melaka (which, given my love/obsession with Malaysia’s national sugar, I was super stoked to create)!
I love gula melaka. Let me repeat myself. I LOVE gula melaka.
As far as my food memory goes, I remember it being my earliest ingredient infatuation. And for as long as I bake, gula melaka will always have a special place in my heart and pantry.
For the uninitiated, gula melaka is a palm sugar extracted from the flower buds of the coconut palm. It has a deep, floral richness, akin to treacle and maple syrup, but without any of the cloy. It’s bold, butterscotch-y, and when melted has the kind of sensual, slow-dripping consistency that makes you want to bathe yourself in this gula glory. If you’re not convinced of gula melaka’s appeal, here’s a quote by Robyn Eckhardt, an American food writer who’s spent a sizeable amount of time in Asia—she headed Malaysia’s prominent TimeOut Magazine at one point—and a self-proclaimed palm sugar addict:
“…I bit into an onde-onde I tasted caramel and smoke, while the pulut inti suggested butterscotch and coffee. Even after tasting three (okay, maybe four) of each, I didn't feel the usual saccharine slickness on the back of my tongue. I had no sugar high. And I wanted more gula Melaka. More, more, more. I was smitten. So began my love affair with Malaysia's ancient sweetener.”
That is but a typical reaction to gula melaka, and is an epiphany that many, if not all Malaysians go through in our youth. Take a look at Malaysia’s cuisine, and you’ll find gula melaka in every crevice. From drinks and shaved iced desserts, kuihs to tong sui (Chinese dessert soups), the floral caramel of gula melaka comes through. It’s even used in savoury applications, tempered into curries and stews to lend depth and a rich bittersweet-ness that commercial cane sugar could never replicate.
But despite gula melaka’s prevalence, it is little known outside of Malaysia, and can be impossible to procure, as Robyn Eckhardt found out the hard way. (She’s since taken to stocking up on gula melaka whenever she’s away from Malaysia.) And as such, it has seen little use in the pantheon of typically “Western” desserts, like pound cakes and trifles, candies and puddings. So, here’s my solution, my small contribution to making gula melaka a household sugar across the world—a gula melaka cake!
It sounds simple, and looks just like a typical bundt cake in some of the photos below—albeit a bit more burnished, a bit more brown. But that is part of the magic of gula melaka—it’s unassuming and subtle, until you smell and taste it, that’s when the epiphany happens. But in case that doesn’t convince you, I added even more pizzazz to the cake, in the form of gula melaka icing, whipped cream with streaks of gula melaka syrup, and sultry shavings of gula melaka, and had (a little too much) fun plating it all up. Plus, for some festive flair, I threw in some whisky-soaked longans too for a bit of texture and a boozy kick, that goes real well with the gula melaka!
It’s a little extra, a little indulgent, but I’m a gula melaka addict after all, so did you expect any less? In fact, I’m very very proud of this cake, and I think it’s one that I’ll be making again and again in the years to come, for as long as there’s gula melaka in my pantry (i.e. always).
A note for those who can’t easily procure gula melaka: This cake would work well with any other dark brown sugar too (though not as well as gula melaka, of course). 😋 But if you really can’t be bothered to make your own, CakeRush can deliver some gula melaka cakes to you! Check out their selection, they have a few that proudly feature gula melaka in them, like the gula melaka chocolate fudge cake, and the gula melaka cheescake.
Gula Melaka Cake
Makes one 9-inch cake
Ingredients
Gula melaka cake
150g gula melaka, or any other dark brown sugar
50g water
150g coconut milk
425g all-purpose flour
5g (1 teaspoon) salt
5g (1 teaspoon) baking powder
4g (¾ teaspoon) baking soda
240g butter, softened at room temperature
120g caster sugar
4 eggs
100g dried longan, soaked in 50ml of rum or whisky, optional
Gula melaka icing
50g powdered sugar
15g gula melaka, shaved
10g (2 teaspoons) milk
Extra garnishes
gula melaka, for shaving
more gula melaka, melted into a liquid, to drizzle
whipping cream, whipped and mixed with (yes, you guessed it…) more gula melaka
Directions
Melting the gula melaka: Place the gula melaka and water in a pot or saucepan set over low heat, and let it slowly simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the sugar has completely melted. Take it off the hear, and let cool to room temperature, then mix it together with the coconut milk.
Ready the dry ingredients: Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, making sure there are no lumps for a smooth batter later on.
Making the batter: Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer, and beat it on medium speed with a paddle attachment for 2-3 minutes, until the butter lightens in colour and becomes fluffy. Then, add in the eggs one at a time, mixing the batter until each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. Next, add in the sifted dry ingredients, as well as the gula melaka-coconut milk liquid, in 2-3 incorporations, starting and ending with the dry ingredients (i.e. dry ingredients -> liquid -> dry ingredients -> liquid -> dry ingredients), mixing the batter briefly in between each addition. Finally, add in the rum-soaked longan, and give it a final mix, making sure no streaks of flour remain but also careful not to overmix the batter.
Baking: Heat the oven to 180°C. Pour the batter into a greased bundt cake mould (or a line caked tin), and bake the cake for 55-60 minutes, or until a cake tester poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Preparing the garnishes: When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and let it cool in the mould for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, you can prep the icing and garnishes! For the icing, mix the powdered sugar, gula melaka, and milk together in a small bowl, and stir it until it comes together into a smooth paste. The rest of the garnishes are pretty self-explanatory, but if you want more gula melaka to drizzle on top, melt some gula melaka in a saucepan. If you want to have some whipped cream to add some levity to the cake, this is a good time to whip it up too.
Eating: When the cake is cool, flip it out from the mould or cake tin, and drizzle the icing on top of the cake, letting it gently drip down the sides and crevices of the cake. The, slice the cake up into 8-12 equal slices (or maybe one unequally large slice for yourself), and serve it alongside some shaved gula melaka, gula melaka sauce, gula melaka whipped cream, and all other forms of gula melaka your mind can conjure up!
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