Do Balinese have their own tradition of sweets? Part I

Indeed they do, called ‘jaja’. Balinese refer to all sweet things as jaja, including breads, cakes and puddings.

Most jaja are made from glutinous rice or black rice and are mixed with grated coconut and brown sugar. People normally boil or steam them – in Balinese, ‘kukus’.

Once, Balinese used to make their own ingredients for their cakes, snacks and puddings. They would refine rice using a Balinese-style mortar (but bigger and placed on the ground, called ‘lesung’) and pestle (a stick more than two metres long called ‘elu’), which you may have seen in old photographs of Bali. This process is referred to as ‘nebuk’. Colouring and flavouring was all natural – ‘suji’ leaves were used to give cakes a green colour, and pandanus leaves would create the delightful aroma. Now, people tend to buy the ingredients, colourings and flavourings ready-made – it lets them get to the eating part quicker!

The first type of jaja is those which are cooked or served with sprinklings of coconut shavings and liquid coconut sugar, or ‘unti’ (grated coconut which has been cooked in brown sugar and pandanus leaves). These fall into two groups:
Jaja ketan kukus (steamed, glutinous rice), jaja injin kukus (black, glutinous rice), jaja giling-giling (rolled like mini crèpes), jaja sered (crescent shaped and plain), jaja wajik (triangular and plain), sang rai (poached, battered bananas), ongol-ongol (sago), laklak (set in clay or stainless-steel molds and heated over a naked flame), and kelepon (with runny brown sugar inside).
Porridge-like puddings, such as bubuh injin, bubuh sumsum (rice flour and pandanus), batun salak (resemble salak stones). These are customarily served with shaved coconut or coconut milk mixed with liquid brown sugar.

Jaja like these are best eaten with a strong cup of black, sweet Balinese coffee.

If you want to know how all these taste, get down to the local markets and hunt down the sweets section!

More Balinese sweets next edition…

Copyright@ Kulture Kid 2007
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