There is no mystery to bibingka at all. Here I was thinking this was such an involved process. 
Not at all. I was so excited to make bibingka that when I visited those bakeshops last week I quickly bought several bags of glutinous rice flour that indicated it could be used for bibingka. When I got home, I realized Bibinkang Galapong was in fact made with regular and not glutinous rice! And since I don’t have a grinder at home, I have to wait until the next time someone heads to the market to do a galapong version. At any rate, I found a super easy recipe for bibingka in my dog-eared Enriqueta David-Perez cookbook and added a tweak or two and what I got were these brilliant first attempts at making bibingka at home…
In a medium sized bowl, beat 3 large eggs until light and creamy. Instead of using a mixer, I actually used a whisk and beat these by hand. In another bowl, place ½ a cup of coconut milk wherein ¾ cup 
of white sugar should be dissolved. Sift together 2 cups of all purpose flour and 4 teaspoons of good baking powder. Add the flour to the coconut milk and sugar mixture and add another cup of coconut milk. Add about 2 tablespoons of melted butter and mix. Add the beaten eggs and mix until well-combined. Let this sit for 10-15 minutes before baking. Line your bibingka pan with a banana leaf cut into a circle and pour in some of the batter. Top with sliced red egg and cook until the top is brown, about 10 minutes or less if the fire is hot.
When cooked, take it off the flames and brush with melted butter and sprinkle 
with white sugar. Serve as is or with additional cheese, grated coconut, etc. As is, this was a very good first attempt. It grew a bit with the help of the baking powder and the resulting bibingka had a nice airiness, good flavor, texture, etc. While this can be easily made at home in an oven, I think the flavor imparted by the banana leaves and the clay oven make a stunning difference. It will take some getting used to figure out the heat of the oven but it worked very well on its maiden use!
28 Responses
yummy looking bibingka! … how about puto bungbong MM, will you try to do it as well?
yummmm…although I’d probably take all the egg off the top :)
Thanks MM, thanks Doddie for the that piece of info re terracota pots.
And thanks for the bibingka recipe which I’m gonna try soon but only afer seasoning my terracota pots real well. Been advised not to use detergents when cleaning clay pots but how do you wash them clean by the way?
susmariosep!
muntikan ko dilaan screen nung makita ko yung bibingka pic. ayayay! my favorite!!!
It feels like the advent of your Christmas posting even now ’cause I can sure get a whiff of smoking ember, charred banana leaves and steaming pandan cha here.
Bibinka looks wonderful! I should make this sometime. Btw MM going to bbq the chicken inasal tonight.
Exciting! Something new to try over the holidays! It definitely seems manageable. Thanks again!
Simbang gabi na! Sarap nito with steaming brewed coffee…
can almost smell that…priceless! MM, powdered rice (not malagkit) is also available in the groceries – one of the brands i can recall right away is peotraco. yes, they also have powdered malagkit.
It looks very yummy and manageable to make and to top it all it can be done in the oven bake in a seasoned clay pot lined with wilted banana leaves. In our place, we have bibingka all year round. They were in every street corners and very competitive too. We used to bring our eggs and salted eggs to perk up bibingka. Also the humble Star Margarine does wonder too. We have tried butter but it is nothing compared to Star Margarine when it comes to bibingka. Due to migration there is a great decline on this livelihood now and there are only few left. It was a way of living for the bibingka vendors They sent their kids to school through bibingka. I assume they did so well!!!
Virgilio, my grandmother would rinse out the pot and then throw out the water. After that, she would take a handful of salt and with a coconut husk brush, scrub the insides with the salt. There would be more rinsing after that and then the pot is clean and ready for use.
This is how we seasoned clay or terra cotta pots: soak the clay pot thoroughly for 8 hours in plain water, then take it out of the water, shake off excess water and put it on stove top and heat it up until it dries out. Then let it cool and clean it with soapy water and rinse it well. It is now ready for either baking or cooking.
Ohhh, that looks wonderful! Reminds me of the time i was working for a restaurant group and the F&B people were testing bibingka recipes before Christmas. The best recipes had more egg yolks and butter…but it wasn’t commercially viable so they went for the ones with less. MM, you’re so right about the difference of cooking this over (and under!) coals being so much better than oven-baked….I can almost smell the difference.
MM, chicken inasal dinner was served. Totally awesome! Unfortunately, my achuete oil was pale (didn’t know what the deal was), but my husband and kids loved it! Sactomato weather was hot so I was sweating like a pig basting it with the achuete oil every few minutes.
I pretty much had to guessed on the marinade since I didn’t have any guildlines as to how it should look or how it should taste.
From what I know, this is a keeper as a dish. Plan to serve chicken inasal on my son’s graduation next year.
Btw, took pictures of the dish.
now THAT’S my kind of bibingka.
MM,don’t worry, you could still make palitaw or guinataang bola-bola with your glutinous rice flour. I got confused the first time I encountered such a thing as rice flour. Didn’t know they ever existed, and that there is such a thing as (regular)rice flour and glutinous rice flour. My first attempt with bola-bola was a gooey mess!
Maria Clara, hehe, Star Margarine, I haven’t had that transfat in a while. I would have to agree with you though, Star margarine makes a difference with bibingka, and is a secret ingredient for my mom’s ube halaya as well. I know, scary, but that animal fat does make a difference. I still remember the commercial growing up, about the margarine fortified with vitamins. LOL, you might have good eyesight but then you get high cholesterol as well.
I wonder if they make them low sodium and low transfat now, like the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” margarine kind available in US groceries?
hehehe – In a medium sized bowl, beat 3 large eggs until LIKE and creamy.
i actually have some rice flour (not glutinous) sitting in my cupboard – any tweaking i need to do if i use rice flour instead? and what oven temp do you suggest? can i use lotus leaves instead?
thanks marketman! can’t wait to do this over the weekend
Grace, thaks for catching the error, like I meant LIGHT, I am doing a galapong version as I type this. Will have it posted in a few hours hopefully. It wasn’t as easy as the flour version… and the glutinous rice flour is totally different I think… I am trying that and so far have a big pot of mush…
Hey the post’s up! thanks marketman. hopefully my experiment will be successful
Hi Mr. MM! Just want to correct your typo error, its banana leaf not leave. =)
Thanks.
Hi again Marketman! I’m going to attempt making this bibingka using a conventional oven. What temperature do you think should I set it to? Also, what’s the reason for resting the batter 10-15 min. before cooking?
trish, I might try a hottish oven at say 375 to 400F, let me know if it works!
i really love to have your recipe of puto bumbong and bibingka for christmas
My recipe for bibingka is in the post above… I also made it with regular/rice flour. I don’t have a recipe for puto bumbong. divida, if you are new to the site, check the archives as I have over 750 entries so far…
Hello Mr. Marketman,
Thank you for the bibingka recipe. I really love to make a business here in New York with your fabulous recipe, but I do not have the equipments and tools necessary. I will really appreciate it if you would be able to help me where to find these things.
I would like to produce bibingka and puto bumbong in commercial quantities here.
Thank you and best regards.
Sincerely,
Lani
just one question.. do you use room temperature eggs (or butter) when making bibingka or puto?