Journey to the Past

Long long time ago, before aviation came to existence, before electricity was invented, men sailed the fierce oceans to do the trading. One of their destinations was the islands in the Equator, which later on became what is now known as Indonesia. This land was so rich, a land flowing with milk and honey. :P No la! Those islands were rich with spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Among the seafarers were the Dutch, who were crazily in love with the spices. Anyway, to cut long story short, in the end, the Dutch colonialised Indonesia for 350 years. (I was actually trying to remember my primary school History subject, but to no avail. So, if you are still interested in the story of Dutch Colonialisation, please Google it or Wikipedia it for more accurate History.)

This super long colonialisation era brought about culture assimilation between the Dutch and the Natives. One of the very obvious things is food! Whee.. ^^v. I believe that the “Dutch food” I’ve tasted here is slightly different from the original ones. For instance, I tried baking Ontbijtkoek (Dutch Spiced Cake) last night. The “tempo doeloe” recipes that I had, use 10 eggs! (Wow, I made history yesterday! I’ve never baked a cake with so many eggs before! ) Anyway, the cake turned out to be very light and fluffy, which is what I’ve known so far. Then I went to Google the correct spelling of the cake for I want to update my bakingbee facebook page. To my surprise the original Ontbijtkoek is a variety of spiced bread!!!! BREAD!!! Dense and heavy bread with Rye as one of the most important main ingredients along with spices. In the Netherland, it is served with thick butter to replace toast for breakfast. My oh my!



So what I baked yesterday is the Indonesian version of the Ontbijtkoek because it is so light and fluffy, and eggy! I still don’t understand why Indos really love cakes with so many eggs used in the making. It’s true that you get a very fluffy and fragrant cake, but it’s not like eating a cake! Haha..I myself prefer the English tea cake, but then, that’s probably because I grew up eating my grandmother’s “tempo doeloe” cakes, heavy dense cakes that can fill your tummy up when you’re hungry.
This version of Ontbijtkoek, is not seriously not bad. But I think, the spices are not fragrant enough! So next time, I will put more spices in.
Enjoy!!