Young Coconut Cake

Ten years or so ago, when I was researching in the Philippines for my Rice Book, came across an abundance of pies in and around Manila in which the filling was the flesh of young coconuts. I believe these are still very popular. The local name for them is ‘buko pie’, and there are buko pie stalls everywhere, with many variations on the basic recipe. For example, the pie can become a cake simply by omitting the short-crust pastry casing. It is that variation that I describe here.

The