Special Bibingka
I already wrote before on the history of Bibingka in my mom’s bake shop. Mom, my sister and I often helped with the experiments to come out with the best bibingka recipe. Here is Bibingka Especial, one of these Bibingka variations which originally came from “Recipes of the Philippines” by Enriqueta David-Perez, 1973 printed edition:
Ingredients
1 cup thick galapong (see procedure on “How to Make Galapong” below)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsps. baking powder
2 tbsps. melted butter (My mom used regular hydrogenated margarine, out of a tub)
4 tbsps. sugar for topping
3 eggs, well-beaten
1 cup coconut milk
3 tbsps. grated cheese (Mom used Magnolia or Kraft processed yellow cheese; I’m more partial to using goat cheese and salted duck’s eggs)
To make galapong bigas:
1. Soak rice in equal amounts of water overnight or a minimum of 4 hours.
2.Grind in a food processor or meat grinder starting with small quantity, adding soaked rice little by little until it produces the consistency of light dough.
3. Let stand until the next day
For the bibingka:
1. Add sugar to the galapong.
2. Add baking powder, melted butter, and the well-beaten eggs and coconut milk. Mix well.
3. Pour a thin layer of this batter into a hot (native clay) baking pan or molds lined with banana leaves (which has previously been passed over an open flame, to soften the fibers).
4. Cover each baking dish with a galvanized iron sheet with live embers on it. (or Bake in a pre-heated hot oven (375 F) until golden brown)
5. When almost cooked, sprinkle grated cheese and sugar on top of each — and cover again. Continue baking until brown; brush top of bibingka with melted butter and serve hot with grated coconut.
Note: If you want a more waxy, chewy “feel” to the bibingka, try mixing malagkit rice to make the galapong. For example, try the ratio of 1/4 cup malagkit rice to 3/4 cup regular rice.
Posted: December 7th, 2008 under Baking Recipes, Bibingka with 11,889 views.
Comments: 13
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enjoy ur blog,very helpful in trying new recipies for a change
Wow…I’ve never tried to cook bibingka and I didn’t know that it could be this easy. I love our native sweets and snacks compared to celebrated foreign ones and your blog is lovely. More power and hope to learn more from you.
can I ask what is the use of the baking powder in cooking bibingka?
thanks!
hi, your using baking powder to this recipe to become fluffy.god bless!
http://ofwfoodetc.blogspot.com/
thanks for the recipe,its real yummy! ganda ng blog mo, and more power to your site!
http://ofwfoodetc.blogspot.com/
Could you please add on how to cook this bibingka version in an oven with the degrees and number of minutes. Recipe looks good but these are things we need to know when we don’t have a bibingka machine.
I hope this is not too late to get a response. I’m sooo interested in making Filipino treats but I’m always stumped by the ingredients. What is galapong? is that sticky rice, or regular rice. I live in Canada and I was surprised to find a huge variety of rice available here because there are so many ethnic groups around. So choosing the right kind of rice would be helpful.
Also – i have to ask, why use baking powder as a leavener? What did our ancestors use before baking powder was invented?
I also plan to create a charcoal oven, – the kind with an earthen bottom and also a hot plate with charcoal on top. It’s kind of like a dutch oven.
Maria
you can remove the baking powder. The galapong bigas aids in the rising of the rice cakes.
Hi there, my friends and I are having Filipino breakfast this weekend and I am making the brave attempt to make try this special bibingka recipe. I have a few questions below
1) rice flour – this is about the only rice flour I could find in London – http://www.thai-food-online.co.uk/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=142&bc=no. This is the non-sticky version. Would this be suitable?
2) “Rice” for galapong bigas – is this ordinary rice?
3) Could I use a regular oven rather than a traditional clay pot?
Bianca
1. Yes the non-sticky version rice will do
2. Yes ordinary rice
3. You can use traditional oven. Bake in a pre-heated hot oven (375 F). Just watch until the top reaches golden brown. Sorry forgot how many minutes.
happy baking!
hi,
i’d like to know how you can make the bibingka softer just like with bibingkinitan bibingka available in malls?
thanks.
I heard from old folks before that one of the ingredients of native bibingka, especially those baked & sold in far flung barangays in the philippines, is the “tuba” – a fresh Tuba is sweet and not intoxicating, unless it is or has been fermented- as the main leavening agent and not the baking powder. I guess this is the reason, plus the native way of baking in earthen ovens where firewoods are used thus creating a signature tatse & smell, that makes it difficult to duplicate now-a-days.
In the meantime, I’m gonna try ur recipe ‘coz I think its pretty close to the old way of making it, especially using the galapong. cheers!
Tuba is used as alternative to baking in our place but too much tuba will give the bibingka a not so nice smell.
Old folks here just “estimates” the tuba that’s why sometimes they put too much tuba, especially if they drink tuba first before cooking

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