How nice it is to have a friend with Indian roots. For example, I regularly feast on the baked goods that Sander makes based on his grandmother’s recipes. Since we have been eating completely vegan since summer 2016, but Sander does love roti koekoes (which normally has eggs in it), we experimented with an egg-free roti koekoes. Vegan, in other words. We used no egg for this, And it worked! Roti koekoes literally means “steamed bread” and was originally made from sponge cake dough. The roti koekoes is a successful work of art when the top bursts open.
Normally roti koekoes is light in color, but because Sander used brown sugar, we got this result. Roti koekoes you actually eat with cream butter, but it’s not vegan. We used vegetable margarine. You can experiment endlessly! Consider adding cinnamon, cocoa or coconut, for example.
Ingredients roti koekoes
- 3 tbsp. no egg (mixed with 6 tablespoons water)
- 200 grams of dark caster sugar (you can also use white caster sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla sugar
- 200 grams of flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 50 ml of water
- 1 tbsp cocoa
Preparing roti koekoes
- Take a steamer pan about 20 cm in diameter and fill the bottom with water. Put on the heat and let warm. Beat the no egg with the sugar and vanilla with a mixer in a bowl over a pan of hot water until the mixture has become thick and dark.
- Remove the bowl from the pan and sift the flour with baking powder and salt over the bowl. Gently spoon this into the no egg mixture in small amounts. Finally, add water.
- Take ⅓ of the batter aside and mix in the cocoa. Now add the cocoa with batter to the rest of the batter. Place a cotton, clean tea towel in the steamer pan. Scoop in the batter. Put the lid on the pan and fold the tips of the tea towel over the lid.
- The important thing now is to always keep enough water in the pan. Do you want to add water? If so, always use boiling water.
- You let the batter steam for about 30 minutes. Don’t open the pan for the first 25 minutes anyway! If you want to check if your vegan roti koekoes is ready, poke a skewer (or sharp knife) in it. When it comes out dry then the roti koekoes is ready.
It is best to serve the roti koekoes warm smeared with vegetable margarine. Did you make too much and want to eat some the next day? Then reheat the roti koekoes in 5 minutes by steaming again briefly. More Indonesian food?
