Bibingka

Bibingka (/bɪˈbiːŋkɑː/; bi-BEENG-kah) is a type of baked rice cake in Filipino cuisine that is cooked in a terracotta oven lined with banana leaves and is usually eaten for breakfast or as merienda (mid-afternoon snack), especially during the Christmas season. It is also known as bingka in the Visayas and Mindanao islands.
Bibingka can also be various other Filipino baked rice cakes, for example, those made with cassava flour (bibingkang cassava / bibingkang kamoteng kahoy), glutinous rice (bibingkang malagkit), or plain flour.
The origin of the name is unknown. The linguist Robert Blust hypothesizes that it was originally a loanword, likely from Malay [kue] bingka. However, the consistent partial reduplication of the word (bibingka) in most Philippine languages, is unexplained. In Macau and Portuguese Goa, there exist also a cake called Bebinca.
Bibingka is the name used for the dish in most languages of the Philippines, including Tagalog, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Bikol, Maranao, and Mansaka. It is also known as bingka in Cebuano and Hiligaynon, bingka or bingkah in Aklanon, and vivingka in Ivatan.
Bibingka is a traditional Christmas food in Philippine cuisine. It is usually eaten along with puto bumbóng as a snack after attending the nine-day Simbang Gabi ('Night mass', the Filipino version of Misa de Gallo).
In 2007 the town of Dingras, Ilocos Norte in the Philippines sought Guinness World Records certification after baking a kilometer-long cassava bibingka made from 1,000 kilos of cassava and eaten by 1,000 residents.
The 82-year-old "Ferino’s Bibingka" is Philippines heritage rice cake founded by Ceferino and Cristina Francisco in October 1938 at their rented apartment in Juan Luna Street, Pritil, Tondo, Manila. From its 3 clay ovens, the couple opened a Manila Hotel complex restaurant in 1957. In 1970, J. Amado Araneta invited Francisco to open a branch at the old Fiesta Carnival. 1938 Francisco Food Specialties, Inc.'s President, Sonny Emmanuel V. Francisco and wife Anne, one of the seven children, revealed his father, Alfredo, who died in 2001, revived Ferino’s Bibingka in 1981, in front of the Baclaran Church after Ferino's 1975 death. Using the traditional ‘kalan de uling,’ the company sells frozen ready-to-eat bibingka, minibibingka, extra super, super, special, bibingcute variants and toasted bibingka at its biggest Kalayaan Avenue store.
In the traditional recipe for bibingka glutinous rice is soaked in water overnight in tapayan jars to ferment with wild yeast called bubod or tuba palm wine, then ground with a millstone or gilingang bato into a batter called galapong. The fermentation provide a faint aftertaste to the product. To save time, modern versions sometimes use regular rice flour or Japanese mochiko flour in place of galapong. Other ingredients can also vary greatly, but the most common secondary ingredients are eggs and milk.
Bibingka is cooked over coals in a shallow banana leaf-lined terra cotta bowl into which the rice flour mixture is poured. It is topped with sliced duck egg and cheese, covered with more banana leaf, and then with a metal sheet holding more coals. The result is a soft and spongy large flat cake that is slightly charred on both surfaces and infused with the aroma of toasted banana leaves. Additional toppings are then added, such as butter, sugar, cheese, or grated coconut.
More modern preparation of the dessert makes use of metal cake pans and purpose-built multi-tiered standing electric ovens. Mass-produced bibingka in Philippine bakeries are also made using tin molds that give them a crenulated edge similar to large puto or puto mamon (cupcakes).
Bibingka is also used as a general term for desserts made with flour and baked in the same manner. The term can be loosely translated to "[rice] cake". It originally referred primarily to bibingka galapong, the most common type of bibingka made with rice flour. Other native Philippine cakes have also sometimes been called bibingka. These may use other kinds of flour, such as corn flour, cassava flour, or plain flour, and are usually considered separate dishes altogether. Some variations of bibingka differ only from the type of toppings they use. The common types of bibingka are listed below:
Bibingka or bingka is also popular in Indonesia, particularly among Christian-majority areas in northern Sulawesi and the Maluku Islands, both of which were former colonies of the Portuguese Empire and are geographically close to the southern Philippines. It is prepared almost identically to Philippine bibingka. In the provinces of North Sulawesi and Gorontalo, bibingka is usually made with rice or cassava flour and coconut milk with shredded coconut baked inside. In the Maluku Islands, bibingka is spiced and sweetened with brown sugar or sweet meat floss. It is also traditionally cooked in clay pots lined with banana, pandan, or nipa leaves. As in the Philippines, it is also usually eaten during the Christmas season.
A pancake-like variant of bibingka was introduced to the Chinese Indonesian communities of East Java during the Dutch colonial period. Known as wingko, wiwingka, or bibika, it became popular throughout the island of Java.