Thousand Layer Cake

My philosophy towards vegan and vegetarian foods is to try not and vegan-ise anything that isn't vegan to begin with. There are some substitutes that certainly work well and I understand the urge to stick to what we know, but there are so many other options out there! So it's probably not a coincidence that my favourite vegan dessert is vegan to begin with.

I'm from a city that intersects with a thousand different cultures, and I have fond childhood memories of all these cultures. This particular cake is from South East Asia but my clearest memories of it were from a Vietnamese restaurant that is now closed, Golden Bull. Without fail, I always ordered the same thing. Spring rolls (wrapped in lettuce, of course), Pho Bo, a coconut milk with jelly drink, and of course, the thousand layer cake.

Unlike Western cakes, many East and South East Asian cakes are steamed or pan fried. This particular one is steamed. It has the light yet quintessential flavours of pandan and coconut milk that earmark it as a decidedly South East Asian dessert. If you aren't the biggest fan of pandan, you can always swap it with other flavours such as sesame or mung bean.

For East Asian parents, this passes the "not too sweet" test, the highest compliment any East Asian parent could give for a homemade dessert. And for gen z, these have the texture of the forbidden candy: Tide Pods.

I've not yet been privy to the secret recipe from a close family friend, but here is one from Living With Q that is similar. A video of this recipe can be found here. This one uses pandan flavouring instead of an actual pandan leaf to make simple syrup, but I am too lazy to make my own syrup. Without further ado, here's her recipe!

Ingredients

1 Cup (8oz.) Boiling Hot Water

1 Cup (~7.5 oz.) Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup (8 oz.) Room Temperature Water

1 Can (13.5 fl. oz.) Coconut Milk

1 Bag (14 oz. or ~2 Cups) Tapioca Starch

Few Drops Pandan Flavouring Gel

Instructions

1. Prepare steamer with enough water to boil for 20 minutes. It's ok if you don't have enough water, you can always add more boiled water later.
2. Dissolve sugar and salt in hot water, then add the room temperature water and coconut milk. To avoid clumps, shake the coconut milk well before opening.
3. Add in tapioca starch, mix till smooth
4. Transfer half the mixture to another bowl and add a few drops of pandan flavouring. The pandan flavouring gel will also add the beautiful green colouring of the cake.
5. Once water is boiling, put in a pan. Choose a mixture to pour in first (I prefer pandan, as I like the sandwich look of having green on top and bottom) and pour enough into the pan that there is a thin layer.
6. After about a minute, the mixture should have set. Once it's set, add the other mixture. Alternate and repeat till you've run out of mixture, then steam for an additional 10 minutes.
7. Turn off heat and take out pan carefully. In my house, we use something like this but this works too.
8. Let it cool down for 1-2 hours!! This is an important step! Then carefully loosen the edge with a knife and turn it upside down to get the cake out. We usually just leave it in the container we steamed it in because we're lazy though
9. Do not saw the cake! Just one downward push for a clean cut.
10. Enjoy!

For storage, don't put this in the fridge or it will get hard and then it will lose that lovely texture. Depending on humidity and temperature, it should last around 2-3 days.