Kaya (Coconut Egg Jam)

For many Malaysian, toasted bread with kaya and butter, is another signature breakfast served in Malaysia kopitiam other than Nasi Lemak.

After moving to Auckland, our toasted bread here is always goes with butter or peanut butter jam. I'm ok with it because I'm not keen lover of Kaya but my boy doesn't. Well, we can find the imported Kaya at Asean grocery stores in Auckland but the price is not cheap and you can imagine it is not fresh with preservatives.

I had tried to make kaya once with 2 of my Malaysian wives group friends Cheng Ee and Cheng Im, but we found the traditional way of cooking was so tiring with hours of standing and stirring over the stove. Worst part was after such tedious process, to our disappointment our kaya came out lumpy and not smooth mixture.

Then I recalled one of my friend's mother-in-law mentioned fast way of making kaya using microwave. I decided to search online for that method. Finally, I managed to locate a few good links showing simple way of making kaya with microwave and I tested it and I did get a wonderful smooth kaya in 30 minutes time! Sharing below is the recipe I adopted for my trial making.

  Kaya Making with Microwave

Caramel Kaya Pandan Kaya KAYA (COCONUT EGG JAM) Ingredients: 4 eggs – (approximate 200ml) 200ml coconut cream/milk 225g sugar (I updated the sugar level, as the previous 1 1/2 cup is a bit too sweet) 3 Pandan leaves (tie knots) Egg (weight) ratio to coconut milk (weight)  and sugar – 1:1 :1.125

1. Mix sugar (remain a small portion to caramel ) and coconut milk together in a microwavable bowl. Mix with a wire whisk and set aside. Don't worry if the sugar has dissolved or not.
2. Break eggs into another bowl. Beat the eggs until they are well mixed. Make sure there are no bits of egg white present. Try not to create much foam. Set aside.
3. Back to the coconut milk and sugar mixture. Stir the mixture with a wire whisk briefly, put in the Pandan leaf and pop the mixture into the microwave.
4. Set the microwave for 1 min on high heat. Remove and stir with the wire whisk. Put it back in and repeat with the same power setting and time.
5. Do step 4 repeatedly until the sugar has completely dissolved and the mixture is hot but not boiling.
6. I use 800W power microwave; I repeated about 5 times on step 4 to get all sugar dissolved.
7. While the mixture is hot, stir it with the wire whisk and at the same time pour in the beaten eggs at slow steady stream. The mixture will thicken slightly.
8. Once finished, pop the Kaya (coconut and egg) mixture into the microwave. Set power on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir.
9. In the mean time, caramel sugar and wait to add into the mixture. If you do not wish to have brown color kaya, then skip the caramel sugar steps and just add some pandan essence/pandan juice for greenish color.
10. When add in the caramel sugar the kaya mixture will crumple, keep on stirring and continue to zap in microwave following step 8.
11. The caramel sugar will dissolve when the mixture get hotter.
12. Repeat step 8 until the kaya mixture traces. By traces means you can forms impressions by stirring the mixture (refer photo).
13. I spent more than 12 times on step 8 and increase to 1 min at one time, for getting the kaya to thicken enough to make traces.
14. Once you get that thickness the Kaya is ready. Take out the kaya and remove the pandan leaf from the kaya.
15. Set aside the kaya to cool down before you pour into bottles/jars. 

Notes:
I noticed if you microwve the kaya mixture longer than 1 min the kaya mixture will get lumpy easier and mixture no longer smooth.

• In order to get smoother kaya texture, is best to lower the heat or reduce microwave time at each session.
• This is crucial after you have added the eggs. You just have to repeat the microwaving more often and this take a longer time.