Chocolate Vanilla Kek Lapis / Lapis Legit / Spekkoek/ Indonesian Layer Cake

Just before I came to live in Australia, I began to discover the art of baking by baking kek lapis for my family during Chinese New Year. On the weekend just before the celebration, I can bake at least four kek lapis to giveaway and each cake will take at least three hours of standing in front of my little hot oven.

At that time, I was using a little non-branded oven that I bought from Cold Storage and remember that I paid SG$50 for it and had to carry it home in a bus ride.

Maybe it was the adrenaline that was rushing in me or maybe I was simply juvenile or naive... Despite my limited baking experience, I told myself that I can bake my kek lapis. Geez! Surprisingly, after 3-4 times of trial baking, I made it!!! And, I was loving baking kek lapis!

After living in Australia for more than a decade, I have finally baked my first kek lapis in Melbourne! Ironic, isn't it???

Why? According to Wikipedia, kek lapis which is also known as spekkoek and lapis legit is layered cake developed during colonial times in the Dutch East Indies. Typically, kek lapis is very rich and a 20 cm (8 inch) square cake can contain up to thirty egg yolks, half a kilogram (1 pound) of butter, 2 cups (400g) of white sugar plus generous amount of condensed milk. The cake can be made with many variations and most contain spekkoek powder (a cinnamon spice mixture) or a mix of spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, clove and star anise. Some variations includes almonds, cashew nuts, dried fruits like prunes or dried cranberries and some are flavoured with chocolate or pandan.

Why am I baking kek lapis for Chinese New Year? In Indonesia, lapis legit literally means delicious layers. A good kek lapis has to be made of many thin layers of cake. Call me an old school person but I can be really picky with the thickness of my lapis... Every layer has to be 0.5 cm or less and every layer has to be nicely brown! As you can see now, baking a good kek lapis can be very labour intensive! Considering the massive amount of rich ingredients, time and effort required to bake this cake, kek lapis can be rather an expensive and exclusive delicacy and this is why the South East Asians love to serve and enjoy kek lapis during our festive seasons.

Now back to the question, why is this cake my first kek lapis that I had baked in Melbourne? Being a health freak, I have been resist to bake cake that contains too much butter, egg yolks and sugar for my little family of three.

Well, you know... Once a health freak, I can always be a health freak... Besides being a health freak now, I was a semi-health freak even during the later time that I was living in Singapore. Unlike the kek lapis recipes at here, here, here, here and many more, I had tried to defy the fat and sugar factor of most typical kek lapis and was baking my favourite 20 cm (8 inch) square kek lapis with lesser butter (325g), egg yolks (12) and sugar (1 cup, 200g) and now, I found another recipe that is also pretty good and has chocolate!

This 12-layers chocolate kek lapis recipe from Honey Bee Sweets contains 250g butter, 14 egg yolks, 260g sugar in total. This amount of butter is slightly lesser than my favourite recipe but is compromised with 2 additional egg yolks. I have baked this cake with a reduced amount of 200g sugar and the sweetness of this cake is still just right for me!

With less amount of butter and yolks, I'm not expecting this cake to super rich like most of the store bought kek lapis but I can assure you that this kek lapis is not greasy and also not dry! To ensure that the cake is moist, do not eat the cake immediately after baking it. Place the cake in an airtight container and allow it to rest in room temperature for at least a day and you will see the difference!

For the fact that this is the first kek lapis that I have baked in Melbourne, I'm glad that it was successful bake without me going through any trial and error. However, it is not entirely perfect!!! Do you know why?

Update on 5 Jan 2021: Please click HERE for my BEST super moist Kek Lapis recipe. This recipe is good but my recent one is the BEST ^-^

Chocolate vanilla kek lapis

Like most typical kek lapis, this cake contains lots of butter and eggs! 

I love my lapis with milky taste and wouldn't omit these 2 lovely ingredients.

To bake this cake, I have to separate 14 eggs!!!
Lucky that I have this wonderful gadget from Tovolo (Australia).

See how I use Tovolo yolk out to separate egg yolk from the white.

Here we go...

Cool!

I have to separate all these eggs to bake kek lapis.
No worries about leftover egg whites, my son will eat them!!! :D

Doing this reminds me of those days that I was using my $10 hand held mixer to beat my batter :)

Yay! My yolk mixture is done and so I set it aside.

Next, I beat the egg whites until stiff peaks.

... Now, I have half as the vanilla batter and another as the chocolate batter.

To ensure that the layers are even, I weigh each layer of batter before baking them.

Call me old school... I like all my vanilla (plain) cake layers to be nicely browned!

I'm not so picky with the chocolate layers as they are naturally brown anyway!!! - LOL!

Can you imagine that I took a total of 2 hours just to bake these 12 layers?

For a final browning of its top and base, I suggest that you have to do this...

Is it perfect? I was like NOOOO!!! when I saw this!!!
The top film of the cake got stuck onto the baking paper that I used to flip the cake!!!
... and peeled off from the cake subsequently!!!

Am I sad? A little... but after trimming the sides of the cake and seeing these layers, I was feeling ok.

Although I can be a perfectionist, I was feeling good after enjoying these lovely cakes!

Update on 5 Jan 2021: Please click HERE for my BEST super moist Kek Lapis recipe. This recipe is good but my recent one is the BEST ^-^

Here's the recipe that is mostly adapted from Honey Bee Sweets

Makes makes one 17-20 cm (7-8 inch) square cake

(mine is 17 cm square)

A

250g unsalted butter, room temperature
130g caster sugar (can be reduced to 70g)
14 egg yolks (from medium eggs, 60g each)
4 tbsp condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 tsp vanilla paste

B

130g caster sugar
7 egg white (from medium eggs, 60g each)

C

150g cake flour
40g Horlick
1 tsp baking powder

D

25g cocoa powder, preferably Dutch processed cocoa powder, preferably Valrhona

3 1/2 tbsp (50ml) hot water

Preheat the oven to 180°C (No fan forced) at grill mode. Line the bottom of a square pan with baking paper. Note: I lost the top film of my cake when I flipped it onto a baking paper. In the future, I will line the bottom of the pan with just one long strip of baking paper that over-hanging two sides of the pan and this will help me to remove the cake easier! Do not use too many pieces of baking paper to line the pan. The multiple layers of paper might form gaps in between layers of paper resulting for the first layer of batter to flow through and causes the bottom layer of cake to be too thin or even burnt.

For ingredients A:

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beat well to combine after each addition. Then, beat in condensed milk and vanilla until well combined.

For ingredients B:
Using another electric mixer or a cleaned electric mixer (absolutely clean with no grease or water), beat egg whites until foamy in a large mixing bowl. While continuing to beat, add sugar gradually in batches and beat until stiff peaks form.

For ingredients C:

Combine all ingredients C and sift into the yolk mixture. Fold into the mixture until combined.

Fold in a third of the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture and fold in gently. Repeat with the rest of the mixtures until all are well combined. Be sure not to deflate the egg white.

For ingredients D:
Combine all ingredients D to form a paste.

Divide the batter into half by weight. Fold in the chocolate mixture into one portion of the batter and leave the other one as the vanilla batter.

To bake the first layer, weigh out 120g vanilla batter. The first layer has to be slightly thicker than others as it requires extra batter to brown well on its bottom. Spread the batter on the lined pan and place baking tray on the top rack of the preheated oven and bake it for 10 mins or until nicely browned. 

To bake the second or subsequent chocolate layers, weigh out 80g chocolate batter. For thinner and uniform layers, you can press the cake gently when the before layer is done and spread the chocolate batter on it. For me, I prefer not to press the cake at this stage just in case I will disturb or destroy the beautiful browning layer of the cake. I will spread the next batch of batter on the unpressed layer and continue the baking. Bake at it for 7 mins on the top rack of the oven (with grill mode) or until firm. Do not over bake this layer as the chocolate ones tend to be drier than the non-chocolate ones. 

To bake the subsequent vanilla layers, weigh out 80g vanilla batter. Press the cake gently when the before layer is done and spread the vanilla batter on it. For me and like what I did for the previous layer, I prefer not to press the cake and spread the next batch of batter on the unpressed layer and continue the baking. Bake it for 9 mins on the top rack of the oven (with grill mode) or until nicely browned.

Repeat spreading and baking the chocolate and vanilla layers until the batter are completely used. 

For the last layer (the 12th and also the chocolate one), bake it for 5 mins on the top rack of the oven (with grill mode) or until slightly firm. Move the cake to the middle rack and switch the oven to 160°C fan forced or 180°C with top and bottom heat and bake for another 5 mins or until the top layer is firm and cooked.

Remove cake from the oven. Set aside for 10 mins to cool slightly. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and allow it to cool completely. Note: Cake can be crumbly when it is freshly baked. For a moister texture, place the cake in airtight container and allow it the rest for a day at room temperature.

To serve, trim off the sides and cut it into slices.

Happy Baking

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