Voila: Chef Karen Carlotta shows her talent in creating a savory dish, es teler tart, for the holy month (Courtesy of Unilever)

The holy month is here and it is time for tasty treats

Indonesia traditionally celebrates major ceremonies with food, and since the country is home to the world’s biggest Muslim population, the Islamic holy month is no exception. At the end of the fasting month, Muslims call for a day of dining and reconnecting with loved ones. For mothers, the Lebaran festivities include displaying an array of scrumptious cookies to be savored by the whole family.

Now that Ramadhan has kicked off, mothers everywhere might just be at this very moment, whipping up their trustworthy cookie recipes. From nastar (pineapple jam cookies), kastengels (cheese cookies), putri salju (sugar-dusted biscuits) to lidah kucing (cat’s tongues), these delights have for generations accompanied this time of forgiveness, making it all the merrier.

Rather than being merely a tradition, however, baking these cookies is a mother’s special tribute to her family members.

“There’s a pride that mothers feel during Lebaran when we have successfully baked these cakes and cookies for our families,” said Meila Putri Handayani, marketing manager at the Savoury & Spread division of consumer goods giant Unilever.

TV presenter Ersa Mayori concurs.

“When our husbands and children smile from eating our cookies, it brings joy to us,” the mother-of-two said, adding that the cookies had a sentimental touch.

Yet, a lot of times, busy schedules are bound to make some mothers frantic around this time, hence these two new recipes that are both time-efficient and delicious are here to save the day. Better yet, they are inspired by two classic Indonesian sweets, es teler (sweet drink with a variety of fruits) and the warm and sweet kolak pisang (banana compote in coconut milk).

Celebrity chef Karen Carlotta created the es teler tart to encourage mothers to continue innovating their recipes to catch the attention of family members.

“[It is a] one-of-a-kind treat inspired by traditional Indonesian food,” she said. For working mothers, there is no need to worry about spending too much time to create this cake, as the tart dough can be prepared in advance as early as the beginning of the fasting month.

“Baking is in fact easy if we start by following recipes. First, I started with simple cakes until I was finally brave enough to experiment with different colors, shapes and even unique toppings of my own!” said Dewi Utari, is a mother and baker, who owns an online pastry shop @shopdelicakes.

For her special Lebaran creation, Dewi transforms the much-loved velvety dessert of kolak pisang with the use of rich coconut milk to produce an acquired taste of pies. She hopes mothers can apply her recipe and draw inspiration from it. “In fact, this requires no oven at all!” she said.

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Cemara Dinda is an intern at The Jakarta Post.

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'Es Teler' Tart

Ingredients
Tart dough:

300 g of all-purpose flour
40 g of custard powder
30 g of milk powder
20 g of icing sugar
1 egg
200 g of margarine
Avocado cream:
200 g of avocado flesh
40 g of condensed milk
30 g of icing sugar

Steps:

◊ Tart dough: Mix and knead all ingredients to form a dough. Flatten with a rolling pin and place inside the pie mold. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes, leave to cool.
◊ Avocado cream: Blend all ingredients and put the mix inside a piping bag
◊ Coconut jelly: Heat all ingredients to a boil, then leave to cool. Cut into small cubes.
◊ Serving: Fill the pie dough with the Avocado cream; decorate with the cubes of coconut jelly and jackfruit.

'Kolak Pisang' pie

Ingredients:
For the pie dough, mix well:
300 g of Marie biscuits, mashed
150 g of margarine
Custard:
2 eggs
55 g of palm sugar
375 ml of instant coconut milk
3 sheets of pandan leaves
1 tablespoon of jelly powder
375 ml of warm water

Topping:

1 banana, sliced thinly
8 pieces of kolang-kaling or sugar palm fruit, sliced thinly

Steps:

◊ Pie dough: Mix the mashed Marie biscuits with the margarine. Pour the mix in a cake pan (diameter of 23 cm). Evenly spread them out on the base and sides of the pan. Place in refrigerator/freezer.
◊ Custard: Inside a bowl, mix well the eggs, pam sugar, coconut milk and tied pandan leaves. Leave for 15 minutes.
◊ Inside a pan, pour in the jelly and water. Then pour in the coconut milk broth and stir.
◊ Remove the pandan leaves and pour the custard milk into the cake pan. Then, place thin slices of bananas and kolang kaling on top.
◊ Place inside the freezer until the custard hardens.

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