Bibingka (Dairy-Free)
A dairy-free take on the Filipino Christmas rice cake — coconut milk stands in for the usual milk and butter, baked until just set and finished under a blanket of toasted coconut.
About this dish
Bibingka is traditionally cooked over coals in a clay pot lined with banana leaf, sold at dawn outside churches during the nine days of Simbang Gabi leading up to Christmas. The banana leaf and clay pot are what give street-stall bibingka its particular smoky edge; this oven version trades that for convenience and leans on coconut milk throughout, which happens to make it dairy-free without changing the character of the cake at all.
- Vegetarian
- Gluten-free
- Lactose-free
- Not vegan because of Eggs
Ingredients
- 250gSweet rice flour
- 100gCaster sugar
- 10gBaking powder
- 300mlFull-fat coconut milk
- 2largeEggs
- 40gDesiccated coconut
Instructions
Whisk the rice flour, sugar and baking powder together in a bowl.
5 minTip: Breaking up the baking powder evenly here matters more than it looks — missed clumps mean patches of cake that never rise.
Whisk in the coconut milk and eggs until you have a smooth, pourable batter.
5 minTip: Pourable is the texture you want — too thick and the cake bakes dense rather than light and slightly springy.
Pour into a lined pan and bake until the centre is just set and a skewer comes out clean.
20 minTip: Pull it the moment the centre sets, not later — bibingka dries out fast once it's past done, unlike most cakes that forgive a few extra minutes.
Scatter the desiccated coconut over the top and return to the oven briefly until lightly toasted.
8 minTip: Watch it closely here — desiccated coconut goes from golden to burnt in under a minute under a hot grill or top heat.