When I was a child, my Nana used to find someone to take her and me to this Filipino specialty store called Fajilan's (I think that was how it was spelled) in Seaside, California. I used to get Pocky (those sticks dipped in chocolate or strawberry sauce), or those rice paper covered candies (hated the candies but loved the dissolving rice paper on them). On certain days, Nana would buy me a sandwich ziplock bag of a dessert she called "cuncanun" (okay I'm spelling it out as it sounds). It looked like white bread, but was spongy and more translucent and had a sweet flavor to it. When Fajilan's closed, the dessert I grew up with and loved went away as well.
So I did a Google search on "Steamed Rice Flour dessert" and found the following:
Chow Times had a dessert called Pak Thong Koh, which looks VERY familiar to the spongy dessert cake I coveted as a child. I wonder if this is it, and I'm wondering where the country of origin is for Pak Thong Koh. Thailand? Vietnam? If anyone knows please let me know!
Another one they had on their website was
Cassava Cake, which I have seen pictures of and while it also looks familiar, texture-wise it's not quite as spongy as the Pak Thong Koh, so I'm wondering about this one too.
Then I saw a
picture from a comment on
Chowhound, which looked a LOT like the dessert I'm dying to replicate.
If you know what I am talking about and have a recipe, please let me know. It's more on the spongy side and not heavy whatsoever and was a transculent white.
Ahhh, memories!!! Nana doesn't know how to make it, otherwise I would ask her.
Labels: Filipino cooking, memories, spongy rice cake, steamed rice flour cake dessert