Puteri Ayu Recipe

Puteri ayu are sweet little steamed cupcakes flavoured with pandan and finished with a slightly salty coconut topping. Southeast Asian desserts have been doing the salty-sweet thing waaay longer than the West.

I know I know, I missed a week recently on this blog. I have a good excuse though: last week a fellow foodie friend from Instagram visited from Germany so I spent some time with him eating way too much food and documenting our foodie conquests on Instagram, and this week I've been making... *drumroll* my manager's wedding cake. Eep!

Anyway, this week I'm so tired from my recent adventures that I really wanted to do something simple. I was feeling Malaysian desserts too, and this puteri ayu recipe just takes a couple of steps to make.

'Puteri ayu' means 'beautiful princess'. And when you see how cute these layered steamed cakes are, you can see why. The green pandan layer and white coconut layer are charming enough, but the signature fluted shape of puteri ayu – which are usually made in mini bundt pans – makes them look like little ball gowns.

(2025 update photos:)

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes six puteri ayu cakes.)

Ingredients for Topping:

3 tbp dessicated coconut
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp cornflour
1/4 tsp salt
Ingredients for Cake:

1 egg
50g caster sugar
1 tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp melted coconut oil
60ml milk
75g self raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp pandan paste

Method:

1. Stir the topping ingredients together, evenly divide between your moulds and press down firmly.

2. In a jug, whisk the egg, sugar, condensed milk and coconut oil until frothy, and gradually whisk into the flour and salt in a bowl. Then stir in the pandan, divide equally between your moulds and steam for 15 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

And... you're done! Have fun and enjoy.