Kuih Rose Sago
Malaysian desserts come in every shape, size, and color of the rainbow. These little Malaysian desserts are no exception. They’re a vibrant shade of hot pink, covered in savory coconut flakes, and have a subtle floral sweetness from the rose extract.
These coconut-covered rose-flavored sago cakes turned out to be one of those happy coincidences where a childhood favorite happens to be classified as fodmap friendly dessert.
Low fodmap desserts recipes are hard to come by and low fodmap baking can be even trickier, which is why in this post we’ll go through a few things:
Without further adieu, let’s get started on our journey through sago, coconuts, fodmaps, and get to making these Malaysian tea cakes.
What Is Sago And Is It Low FODMAP?
This Malaysian coconut dessert base is made from Sago. Sago comes from a palm plant called Metroxylon sagu. It is a tropical plant native to Asia, among other islands in Southeast Asia.
In a lot of cultures, sago is a staple food. However, in Malaysia, sago is often incorporated into desserts. When not cooked, sago resembles little white pearls.
These little white balls are essentially edible starch and because of that, sago is a low FODMAP and is a fantastic ingredient for ibs desserts.
Are Coconuts Low FODMAP?
One of us loves desserts and we mean absolutely obsessed with them but making a low fodmap cake or low fodmap desserts is not a walk in the park. Easy low fodmap desserts are hard to come by because a lot of ingredients have either not been tested, have precise serving sizes, or are not ibs-friendly.
Coconuts are one of those ingredients that come in many variations -milk, cream, canned, dried, fresh, etc.- and because of this, each kind comes with different serving sizes and recommendations for a low fodmap diet.
This coconut rose cake requires dried desiccated coconut or if you can manage to get your hands on it; fresh coconut flesh. If you do have access to fresh coconuts, you can also use a grater and do it manually. Don’t worry if you can’t find any, because we’ll show you how to add moisture back into dried desiccated coconut right after we talk about fodmaps.
Fresh Coconut Flesh VS Dried Desiccated Coconut
It does not make a difference to this recipe whether you’re using dried desiccated coconut or fresh coconut flesh. What does change is the serving size based on fodmap levels.
We can only assume that shredded coconut fodmap is similar to desiccated coconut because they’re processed the same way. But according to Monash University and the food app they developed, the fodmap levels between fresh coconut flesh and dried shredded coconuts are different.
Fresh Coconut Flesh
Fresh coconut flesh is low to moderate fodmap when served in 3/4 cups. Anything more than 1 cup will be a moderate level of fodmaps (sorbitol). So, if you’re planning on using fresh shredded coconut, make sure to keep it under 3/4 cups.
Dried Desiccated Coconut
Desiccated coconut is made from the dried and shredded flesh of mature coconuts. According to Monash University, dried desiccated coconut fodmap is low when served in 1/2 cup portions. Anything above that serving size, namely large servings like 3/4 cups will be considered high fodmap (polyols).
How To Rehydrate Desiccated Coconut
If you’re using dried desiccated coconut for this recipe, it is crucial to steam the shredded coconut to reintroduce moisture. Start by adding salt to the coconut -this helps elevate the dessert- and add a teaspoon of water before steaming the coconut for 10 minutes.
How Not To Cook Sago: Mistakes To Avoid
There is no one way to cook sago when you’re making a traditional Malaysian dessert. Depending on the sweet treat you’re trying to make, the method will vary but there is a wrong way to cook sago.
In our other sago recipe, we have a more comprehensive list of things not to do when you’re cooking with sago in general but this recipe is a little different because of the structure of this particular dessert.
To avoid having gluey or starchy sago that basically disappears in your desserts, avoid making these mistakes:
- Washing and or soaking sago
- Using too little water
- Adding sago to room temperature water
- Clumpy sago
- Over cooking sago
Washing And Or Soaking Sago
Sago is basically edible starch balls. When introduced to water before the cooking process, these little balls of starch will disintegrate into the water and vanish. Leaving you with no pearls and starchy water.
Washing your sago prior to cooking or soaking it will not only remove starch but you will have a significantly smaller serving size and end up with misshapen lumps instead of perfectly round sago pearls.
Using Too Little Water
In our Vegan Coconut Cream Mango recipe, we mentioned that sago is not like rice and if you use an equal measurement of sago to water, all you’ll end up with is a gooey mess. We aren’t looking for a gooey mess but in this case, you do want to use less water than traditionally called for when cooking sago.
Adding Sago To Room Temp Water
No soaking or washing sago, that was rule one in the list of mistakes to avoid. Adding sago pearls to room temperature water is essentially doing the same thing.
Only add sago to boiling water. Otherwise, you’re letting the pearls sit in the water while it comes to a boil. Therefore, resulting in gluey starchy water with barely any pearls in sight.
When you add the sago to boiling water, the outermost layers of the pearls are cooked immediately upon contact with water. When that happens, a sort of protective seal is formed around the sago pearls and allows them to retain their texture and shape while cooking.
Clumpy Sago
Clumpy sago is bad for dishes that require the pearls to be beautiful singular balls floating in a pool of whatever delicious liquid that recipe calls for. This low fodmap dessert recipe depends on the sago clumping up to form the structure of these cakes. For the purpose of this recipe, do not rinse the sago after it is cooked.
Over Cooking Sago
Sago has a relatively short cook time of about 10-12 minutes. Usually, around this time, the pearls still have a white dot in the center. A common mistake that is made when cooking sago is to boil sago until the center is completely transparent.
Ideally, what you should do is boil the sago for 10-12 minutes -yes, the little white dot will still be there -and then, turn the heat off and place a lid over the pot. Let the sago sit covered in the pot for 3 minutes. This allows the sago to cook through in the residual heat.
For this recipe, we’ll be undercooking the sago and finishing it off in the steamer.
What To Do If You Don’t Have A Steamer
Quite a few sago Malaysian dessert require a steamer. Just because you don’t have a steamer, doesn’t mean you can’t pull a Macgyver and turn this into an easy DIY situation. If you want to make this easy low fodmap dessert but don’t have a steamer, here’s a hack for you.
And just to show you that it indeed does work, we put our steamer aside and made this dish using our DIY steamer.
Tip: Prepare boiling water before doing this and only add the water in the pan or pot once the trivet and dish have been securely placed in the pot.
Place a trivet or rack in a pan or a pot -we used a pan.
Put the dish with the sago on top of the rack and then pour in pre-boiled water.
Use a lid, wok, pot, or any other pan that fits as a cover, and voila! You have yourself a steamer.
How To Cook Sago For These Little Malaysian Desserts
A lot of people google, “how to cook small sago.” And we’ll be honest we’ve you, there are plenty of ways to answer that question. But the correct answer isn’t this way or that way. The right answer is, how you cook your sago depends on what kind of dessert you’ll be making.
For this coconut sago dessert we are going to cook the sago 3/4 of the way through and then transfer the pearls into a container or dish to steam to finish cooking.
If it looks like this, it is not ready:
Once the water is boiling and you’ve added the rose extract, sugar, and pandan leaf, add the sago to the pot. Cook the pearls for 10 minutes or until it should look like this:
Transfer the mixture to a dish lined with banana leaf, baking paper, saran wrap, or any food-safe plastic. This will make it easier to remove for the cutting process. Steam the pearls for 20 minutes until the pearls are clear. You will know when they’re cooked when they look like this:
Let the sago cool for 40 minutes to an hour and then portion it out into small squares like so:
Coat the sago squares in the rehydrated desiccated coconut:
Repeat this step until all the sago bars are coated entirely in the rehydrated coconut flakes. Store covered at room temperature or in an air-tight container in the fridge.
More Malaysian Desserts
These little rose-flavored Malaysian cakes are just one of the many traditional Malaysian desserts that the country has to offer and by golly are some of them really interesting.
Malaysian dessert recipes can be tricky since the whole country cooks with the “eye-ball measurement system,” or more commonly known as “agak-agak.” Which literally means guess. So, we’re happy to have come up with a full proof “kuih rose recipe” that works each time.
Have you had these kuihs or any other Malaysian dessert before? Let us know in the comments what your favorite tea time dessert is.
Looking for more sago desserts? Here are a few recipes that will transform how you view these humble little starch balls:
Looking for other dessert recipes?
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