Batik Cake or Hedgehog Slice

A cake requested by my mother in law. The only cake ever requested.

Each time she come back from US, she’ll talk about this marie biscuit cake, filled with some Milo fudgy sauce. I had no idea what it was, and I searched on the internet. Actually 2 years ago, I already found out that the cake was called Batik Cake, but I never made it. Until this time that she came back.

I finally made it. It's the one of the few stuff I made since she came back last Nov 2009, yeah it's more than half a year since I made this. As you can see those natural lighting photography was so bad, definately it was from ages ago

There are many versions on the internet, and I found that, some made it with eggs, some without. To me, with eggs should taste better. Some use cocoa, some don’t. Well, I can jack up the Milo and condensed milk content and do away with the cocoa powder, extra sugar and extra water. Well, I just don’t like to keep half opened up stuff as much as possible. So, to use up everything in one attempt has always been my preference.

And I also found out that it is called Hedgehog Slice in Australia. Maybe some Malaysians ciplak(pirated) it and gave it a local name, batik cake. You know la, please visit Petaling Street.

The condensed milk u see here, is Full Cream Condensed Milk, bought by Lydia’s nanny from Singapore.

You may substitute with the local sweetened creamer.

So, here are the ingredients

1 pack 250gm Marie biscuits (I got mini maries, u can use regular maries)

1 pack 200gm Milo , or u can use any malted chocolate drink like Ovaltine or Vico

1 can 397gm Sweetended Condensed Milk

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

150gm butter, about 2/3 cup

What I did was,

1. Prepare one 7 inch square pan. Fully lined with non stick baking paper. Make sure the paper is much higher than the pan.

2. Lightly beat eggs. Put in Milo, and condensed milk and whisk until well combined.

3. Pour egg mixture into a non stick pot/pan , put in butter. On medium low heat, cook while stirring all the while until mixture starts to thickens. Reduce to low heat.

4. When the egg custard is cooked, it looks grainy and thick. Remove from heat.

5. Spread one layer of custard into the pan. Arrange marie biscuits onto custard.

6. Repeat step 5 until all biscuits or custard are used up. A thin layer of custard is enough for the interlayers.

7. When the layering is all done, fold in the high collars of the paper. Press down and compact the cake with ur hands.

8. Chill in fridge overnight before cutting.

Well, at first she said, it was it. But as she ate on..she said, not quite like it. The one she ate years ago was softer. The biscuits were softer, no biscuit feel at all, it's homogenous. Well, I've never eaten this before so I didn't not know how to gauge.

Hmmm... ok, next time I know what to do. I'll use evaporated milk instead so that there will be more liquid.

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