Bibikkan

Bibikkan is a dark-colored Sri Lankan cake made with chopped coconut and palm treacle. Spices and nuts are combined into a moist batter that retains bits of coconut. Also called pol cake, it appears on the table at New Year and other celebrations.

Cooking coconut in treacle

Treacle made from kithul or coconut sap gives the batter not only sweetness but also a deep color. Methods vary: some use rice flour, while others use semolina or wheat flour. The texture of the baked cake changes depending on the type of flour and the amount of coconut.

In one family’s recipe (the proportions of ingredients and the method), the treacle is warmed, mixed with grated coconut, cardamom and cloves, and simmered down a little. Dates are chopped, soaked in warm black tea, mashed, and then added together with cashew nuts. After the mixture has cooled, eggs and flour are mixed in, and the batter is poured into a pan and baked. Adding the eggs while the mixture is still hot would make them set, so the cooling step is important. Brushing on treacle near the end of baking gives the surface a glossy sheen.

Another method lightly roasts the semolina and folds in whipped egg whites at the end. Some versions add dates, raisins or candied ginger, layering the crunch of the nuts and the sweetness of the fruit over the bits of coconut. Because the cake can crumble if it is cut right after baking, some methods let it cool before slicing.

The New Year table and similar names

Food writer Roshani Wickramasinghe bakes this cake for the New Year celebrations and serves it with tea. Besides making it at home, some people buy it from shops for the celebrations. The moist slices are easy to share and can also be enjoyed at teatime.

New Year sweets also include kavum and aluwa, which use the same treacle and rice flour. Whereas kavum is fried and aluwa is kneaded and cut, the bibikkan in this recipe is a coconut-rich batter baked in a pan. There is a theory that it originated in the Portuguese period, but that theory alone cannot establish how the sweet came into being. Goa’s bebinca and the Philippines’ bibingka have similar names, but the sound of a name alone is not enough to conclude that they belong to the same lineage of sweets.

Glossary