Layered Kaya Steamed Cake - Filled Baos # 1

First of all... I would like to tell you the name is misleading.

It's not a cake, but more of a steamed bread, a huge "pau" that is eaten sliced. If you're used to german yeasted cakes, then yeah, this is a cake. Bread or cake, I surrender.

The Chinese name is 千层糕, which translates to thousand layer cake. I only have 10 layers.

I was in the state of  'ding dong ding dong' when it came to naming this post.. hence the title and the word in my picture is different.

Actually I first saw such a cake on Zurin's blog. It was filled with coconut. Then I saw another recipe in an old cook book written by Pei-Mei, also with coconut. I sort of forgotten about it, until I saw this recipe, of which is made with pumpkin.

I tried to make this with a "simply concocted" overnight sponge dough, hoping the final product will remain soft for a longer time.

It takes many hours to get this done, so you can use any recipe you like to achieve this look and ignore this recipe that I'll be sharing with you. But because my dough is a slow riser, I can slowly roll out each piece of dough and stack, rather than to race against time. The dough also has good resistance to rolling out thin, but then again, it's a slow riser. 

Layered Kaya Steamed Cake

Recipe source: WendyinKK

Sponge dough

250gm pau flour

200gm water

1gm (1/4 tsp) instant yeast

Mix and leave to proof for at least 8 hours at room temperature (28-30C), overnight will be fine (max 12 hours)

Main dough

150gm pau flour

50gm sugar

1 tsp baking powder

Small pinch of salt

40gm shortening

9 Tbsp kaya (coconut egg jam)

1. Knead everything (sponge dough +main dough) together (except kaya) until a smooth dough forms. (I manually kneaded, takes a while only, 5-10 minutes)

2. Divide dough into 10 balls (about 63-67gm each), cover and let it proof for 1 hour. It will be puffy, but not double, maybe 30% bigger.

3. Roll out dough into thick circles. Let the circles rest for 10 minutes.

4. Line a steaming tray with non stick baking paper, prepare 9 inch cake ring, lightly oiled.

5. Roll out the rested circles into large thin circles that is 1 inch smaller than the ring on both sides. Place this onto the steaming tray.

6. Spread 1 Tbsp of kaya onto the rolled out dough.

7. Roll out other pieces of dough into similiar sizes, and stack them up with kaya in between. Place ring around the stacked layers.

8. Cover the stacked doughs and let it proof until double. It will take about 2 hours.

9. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes or until you can smell the aroma of the kaya.

10. Let the 'cake' cool down and slice it to your preference. Don't be saddened if the center seems sunken (when we lift the dough off after rolling, the center will be pulled thinner and sides thicker, which is why it might happen).

I made this last week again with traditional kaya, that is brown. The layers are more prominent. I used 2 different jars of kaya, hence 2 shades of brown.