How To Make Puto Pao

Puto Pao

Puto is a traditional rice cake in the Philippines. It is usually made from rice, sugar and coconut milk, flavored with anise or pandan. The rice is soaked in water to soften it then ground to make it smooth. Water or coconut milk is added and sweetened with sugar. A leavening agent is also added like baking powder. 

When ready, the batter is poured to a puto mold and steamed for a certain time until the puto is cooked. Oftentimes the puto is served with freshly grated coconut or buttered and sometimes eaten as is. 

In the Philippines puto is a good snack and served during parties to pair with noodle dishes and other snack favorites like dinuguan, noodle soups or even rice porridge. 

Puto can be flavored according to your taste. Cheese is the favorite topping and butter is also brushed on top after steaming. 

On special occassions puto is colored to give it an eye appeal to match flavors like green for pandan, yellow for cheese, plain white for coconut, violet for ube flavor and so on. My favorite flavor is asado, a meat dish used to fill Siopao or Chinese steamed buns. 

Here is how I make my Puto Pao. It is puto filled with Asado Meat and topped with salted egg slice. The texture of the dough is similar to siopao and the taste is as good as the soft siopao I use to make at home. 

Ingredients:

2 cups All Purpose Flour

2 Tablespoons Powder milk

1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 1/2 cups hot water

3/4 cup white sugar

2 Tablespoons Soft Butter

For the Topping:

2 salted eggs, sliced

Procedure:

Whisk dry ingredients flour, powder milk and baking powder together in a bowl. Sift them to remove lumps. 

Combine hot water, sugar and butter in a glass pyrex bowl and mix to dissolve sugar and melt the butter. When liquid is lukewarm add 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast into the sugar mixture. 

Add the liquid mixture to the sifted dry ingredients to make a batter without lumps. Rest the batter for 30 minutes at least to 1 hour. 

Fill oiled puto molds 1/4 full of the batter mixture then add a teaspoonful of Asado filling into it then cover the filling 3/4 full of the mold. 

Steam for 10 minutes, top risen puto with salted egg slices then steam again for another 5 minutes. Adjust time according to the size of your mold. 

Serve, share and enjoy! 

Puto Pao Reheated

Puto Pao Serving