Baye Baye Recipe

Baye Baye is a kakanin from Ilocos. It is made from ground and toasted pinipig or corn and pounded with young coconut, coconut water and sugar.

What is Baye Baye?

Good question! I love finding recipes like Baye Baye (pronounced baje baje) where it mostly known locally. From my research the version that I made is from from Pavia, Iloilo. It can be made with either ground pinipig or corn. These two videos show how it is made from scratch. I mean really made from scratch as they are harvesting both the corn and the coconuts!

Made with Pinipig

Made with Corn

There is another version from Miyago where glutinous rice is roasted by the sun and then ground. Sugar and grated young coconut is then boiled together until it is all melted. Then the ground rice and sugar coconut mixture is placed in a lusong and pounded until smooth. It is then cut into small squares and wrapped in fresh banana leaves resembling pillows.

What we are making is the more similar to the version from Pavia where pinipig is ground and toasted then grated coconut is boiled with coconut water and sugar. Then it is pounded together in a lusong until it's all mashed together. Finally it's cooled and cut to serve. I've seen photos where it's just cut into squares or rolled into tubes. However in most descriptions Baye Baye is either wrapped in cello paper or banana leaves.

Ingredients

Pinipig is the base of the recipe. It is flattened and dried young rice. In this recipe we are going to first toast it in a pan and then grind it in a food processor.

Sweet Glutinous Rice Flour - I found that the pinipig wasn't enough to get the right texture so I added a bit of toasted rice flour.

Young Coconut Flesh gives that slight coconut flavor. As it's not so mature the flavor isn't as strong.

Coco Jam is the sweetener I used here. Mainly because I had a jar that needed to be used. Traditionally either white or muscovado sugar is used. Please feel free to replace it with sugar.

Coconut Water is used to loosen up the mixture or else it would be more candy like bukayo.

Toast the Pinipig and Rice Flour

The first step is to toast the pinipig. Pour the pinipig into a shallow pan and turn the heat to medium low. Keep stirring for about 10 minutes until it starts to turn golden and smell toasty. Transfer to a bowl.

Using the same pan add the sweet glutinous rice flour and toast as well. This time for 5-8 minutes on medium low. Once the flour turns from white to a light yellow and starts to smell toasty remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl to cool fully.

When both the toasted pinipig and rice flour are cool put both into a food processor and grind until it is a fine powder.

Make the Coconut Sugar Mixture

Place the young coconut flesh, coconut jam and coconut water in a medium sized sauce pan. Bring up to a boil and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Take off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature.

Once it has cooled place the mixture in a food processor and blitz until smooth. Then add in ⅓ of the pinipig mixture and mix until incorporated.

Form the Baye Baye

Transfer that mixture into a mixing bowl along with the rest of the pinipig mixture. Using the paddle attachment mix at medium speed for about 5 minutes until smooth.

Line a small tray with plastic wrap and coat with coconut oil. Place the Baye Baye in the tray and smooth out until even. Put in the refrigerator to cool for 1 hour.

While it is cooling prepare your banana leaves. I live in California so I can't get fresh so I used round frozen ones and cut them in half trimming the sides to make a rectangle.

Once the mixture has cooled take it out and cut into 16 pieces and form into short logs. Wrap the logs in the banana leaves.

How To Store Baye Baye

The great thing about banana leaves is that it provides a natural barrier for food. You can store them in the fridge in a container for up to one week.

What do you serve with it?

Baye Baye is a great snack / merienda food so I would say coffee, salabat and even tsokolate would be great.

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