Kaya Jam is a very popular spread for bread toast in Singapore and Malaysia. I have been exposed to commercial Kaya jams since young that I had assume this is how it should taste like. Until recently when someone introduced me to homemade fresh Kaya jam (Coconut egg jam), I was astonished at how different the taste is from commercial Kaya. The Kaya taste very fresh, filled with Coconut fragrance. The taste kept lingering inside me, it’s unforgettable. I decided to try my hands on making Nonya Kaya myself.
Traditionally, jam spread are supposed to be very sweet. I reduced the sugar level to a just-nice sweet level, so that I can taste the richness of Kaya without additional sin of sweetness. (This is akin to buying a bubble tea, asking for 25% to 30% sweetness level).
I have made some Pandan Kaya jam using Madam Kwong’s recipe, by using reduced sugar level. I realised that when you use whole eggs in the making of the Kaya Jam, the cooked jam curdled up and you need to blend the jam to get a smooth texture. But the taste is delicious.
Now, I decided to experiment using another recipe using fresh coconut milk and egg yokes only, from Food52 with some modifications. The resulting cooked jam does not curdle up much, and the coconut and egg fragrance is more intense and fragrant (thus blending is optional here). I also modify to use Dark Brown soft Sugar in my recipe. The resulting Pandan Kaya’s color was greenish brown instead. You can use castor sugar if you wish to retain the green color.
Nonya Pandan Kaya Jam Recipe (Less Sweet)
Ingredients (Will make about 180 gm of Jam – about half a jar)
Note: please double up the quantity to make a jar.
8 small egg yokes (or 4 large egg yokes)
200 mils fresh coconut milk
25 grams Dark Brown Soft Sugar
4 stalks of Pandan leaves (washed and wipe dry)
A pinch of salt
Method
Step 1 – Preparing the Pandan Juice
- Take 3 stalks of the pandan leaves, cut into small stripes, put into grinder to grind into fine pieces.
- Pour the grinded pandan leaves out, add in 3 tbsp water. Mix well. Squeeze out the pandan juice.
Step 2 – Preparing the Kaya Jam
- Firstly in a bowl, put all the egg yokes together and lightly beat to mix. (No need to overbeat till foamy).
- Using Bain Marie method (like double boil concept, below is a bigger pot of hot water, another smaller put inside this bigger pot), pour coconut milk into the pot immerse in a bigger pot of hot water. Stir constantly the coconut milk until it is hot, but before it starts to boil. Then remove the coconut milk from the heat, in very small streams, slowly pour the coconut milk into the egg yokes (this is to prevent curdling of the egg yokes). Mixed the coconut milk and egg yokes. Add in Pandan juice (from step 1) to the mixture and combine well.
- Pour the coconut milk and egg yokes mixture back to the pot on Bain Marie. Tie the last stalk of Pandan Leave into a circular bundle and throw inside the mixture for the fragrance and enhance the green color. Add in pinch of salt. Constantly stirring the mixture.
- Add in Dark Brown soft sugar slowly. Stir and taste the mixture. (My recommended sugar level gives me a just sweet enough level. If you wish to have a sweeter taste, slow add more sugar and taste until you have the level of sweetness that you desire.)
- As you keep stirring the mixture, it will slowly thickens. Once the mixture thickens sufficiently, turn off the fire. The Kaya will continue to thicken as it cools down.
- Once cooled, stored in fridge for up to 1 week. (This is the reason why I make a small portion.)
