I mentioned about making ma lai koh the other day. The previous batch of malaikohs I made were from a Nyonya kueh recipe. Though it is more like the ma lai kohs sold by the stalls, I find it too tedious to prepare the ma lai koh as I need to leave the yeast to ferment overnight. The recipe also use a lot of oil which make the ma lai koh rather oily.
So, I google around for other recipe and like the one posted by Sidney of BigBoysOven. The recipe looks easy and the recipe uses less ingredients.
That’s what I steamed this morning. The texture and taste of the steamed coconut milk and palm sugar cake is good. My two younger children who dislike the one I made with yeast told me this ma lai koh is yummy. However, it must be my lousy palm sugar because the colour is not dark nor smell of palm sugar.
I shall copy the ingredients from BigBoysOven but you shall need to read their post to find the method. The comments in brackets are my reference notes.)
Ingredients for ma lai koh
70ml palm sugar (Crush about 70 grams of palm sugar and mix with a bit of hot water to dissolve it. I have to give it a quick boil. You should yield about 70 ml.)
2 large eggs
100gm castor sugar
(Beat the eggs and castor sugar till really whitish and stiff.)
160gm cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda (I do not have baking soda so I used baking powder. That’s why my ma lai koh did not ‘fatt’ like BBO version. My son told me later that if I am substituting powder with soda, I should double the quantity of the baking powder.)
200ml thick coconut milk (200 ml of coconut milk is about RM2 if you buy from the wet market)
I do not have the ceramic cups so I used cupcakes paper casings in egg tarts aluminium casing.
I get 20 nice, soft, moist, lemak, non sticky ma lai koh. Except that my malai is a rather fair koh. This recipe is certainly very easy to do.
Hi Lilian! I’ve been a frequent visitor to your site for its fascinating info about places that you’ve went and food that you prepare and eat. Not to mention your review about dining places in Malaysia. I like your blog very much. But, I do have a simple question, what is the meaning of mah lai ko? Is it the same with cupcakes? I’m saying this because the mah lai ko in your picture do resembles cupcakes. I’m sorry if I offended you and happy blogging! Looking forward to your next post^^
nick – I think this ma lai koh is getting extinct. No wonder your generation hardly hear about it. It is steamed cake sold by the traditional dim sum restaurants and cake shops. Ma lai = malay, koh = cake. My version turned out too ‘fair’ but if you look at the link I provided for Big Boys Oven, you may recall eating that when you are young.
Haha^^ Yeah, I think so too. Sadly, I can’t recall anything about mah lai ko, maybe I will just try the recipe myself and see if the taste bring back some memories. Thanks for replying^^