Ant's Nest Cake / Kek Sarang Semut

Ant's Nest Cake, 2014

The ant's nest cake is a traditional Malay caramel (gula hangus) cake baked instead of steamed. The sticky and bouncy texture of this dessert should be more closely related to a kuih, than the usual crumbly buttery cake. It resembles the texture of Pak Tong Gou (Steamed White Cake), which I am more familiar of. This is the first time I tasted Ant's Nest Cake myself.

Being an anti-caramel person, surprisingly this cake tastes really good. I like that it is baked to have the exterior dark golden brown, and I promise, it does not taste overly sickly sweet as much as it sounds. The best part is, it hardly needs any beating or mixer involve equipment - which saves a lot of cleaning and dreadful dish washing.

Ant's Nest Cake, 2014

Ant's Nest Cake Recipe (Kek Sarang Semut)
(makes a 7" x 3.5" loaf tin)

130g castor sugar
165ml water
50g butter

4 large eggs
105g condensed milk
120g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

method :

1. pour sugar onto a pan, turn on low heat, keep close watch. when sugar turns dark brown turn off heat and carefully pour water onto the pan. ♥ be very careful when you do this, sugar mixture will start to splatter, use a lid to stop the continuous splattering.
2. remove sugar mixture from heat, add butter to melt in the hot mixture and let it cool.
3. beat eggs and condensed milk until frothy. sift in plain flour and baking soda. mix until incorporated and no lumps of flour.
4. add caramel mixture into the batter and mix well. pour into prepared pan lined with parchment paper and let it sit for 2-3 minutes. 
5. in the meantime, preheat oven to 180C. bake for 1 hour with bottom heat only.
6. let the cake cool slightly before removing from the pan. 

notes :
♥ my cake was baked 30 minutes in convection heat, then the next 30 minutes with bottom heat only
♥ keeping close watch after 50 minutes of baking, testing with a skewer

Ant's Nest Cake, 2014