Kue bolu or simply Bolu is an

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

term to describes a wide variety of sponge cakes, tarts and cupcakes. Kue bolu might be steamed or

baked Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferre ...

. There are wide variety of kue bolu, and most of the texture is soft and fluffy akin to sponge cake or chiffon cake.

Ingredients

The ingredients for kue bolu may includes

wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread ...

, rice flour,

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

coconut milk Coconut milk is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts. The opacity and rich taste of coconut milk are due to its high oil content, most of which is saturated fat. Coconut milk is a traditional food i ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

, and

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

margarine Margarine (, also , ) is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was orig ...

. Flavourings might include

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

or pandan. Kue bolu is known for its soft and fluffy texture, contributed from the foaming effect of bubbles created by leavening agent that lightens and softens the dough mixture. Traditionally kue bolu uses

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitut ...

as leavening agent, today however, baking powder or baking soda is more commonly used. Today in Indonesia, bolu is mostly refer to a bare sponge cake without any frosting. Cakes that coated in frosting is called ''keik'' (derived from

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

"cake") instead.

Etymology and history

Hundred years of colonisation in Indonesian archipelago has left its legacy in local culinary tradition. European influences upon

Indonesian cuisine Indonesian cuisine is a collection of various regional culinary traditions that formed the archipelagic nation of Indonesia. There are a wide variety of recipes and cuisines in part because Indonesia is composed of approximately 6,000 popula ...

is most prevalent in baking, pastry, cake and bread making technique, introduced by Portuguese and Dutch colonials. The term ''bolu'' in

is derived from Portuguese ''bolo'' to describe

cake Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients, and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate, ...

, or more precisely

sponge cake Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated ...

. This

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

describe the historic Portuguese influence in Indonesia. After the Dutch take over, the

Dutch word Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German lan ...

''taart'' was also entered Indonesian vocabulary, as a similar kind of ''

kue Kue is an Indonesian bite-sized snack or dessert food. Kue is a fairly broad term in Indonesian to describe a wide variety of snacks including cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue are made from a variety of ingredients in ...

'' snack or cake, thus today the term ''bolu'' and ''tar'' or ''tart'' is used interchangeably to describe cakes or tarts.

Variations

In Indonesian cuisine bolu is categorized under ''

'', which includes wide variety of traditional snacks, cakes, and sweets. Kue bolu or simply bolu is often used as an umbrella term to identify wide varieties of cakes and tarts in Indonesia. Variations include: ;Bolu bahari: Small bolu cupcake of

Kalimantan Kalimantan () is the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. It constitutes 73% of the island's area. The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are Brunei and East Malaysia. In Indonesia, "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo. In 2019, ...

(Indonesian Borneo). ;Bolu bruder: Lit:brother's cake, Manado (Minahasan) soft bolu sponge cake. In Manado Malay the term ''bruder'' means Christian priest, which derived from brother in Christianity. Spelling variations include brudel or bluder. ;Bolu emprit: Small bite-sized bolu of Javanese cuisine tradition, prevalent in

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...

. ;Bolu gulung: Rolled bolu akin to

Swiss roll A Swiss roll, jelly roll (United States), roll cake, cream roll, roulade or Swiss log is a type of rolled sponge cake filled with whipped cream, jam, or icing. The origins of the term are unclear; in spite of the name "Swiss roll", the cake i ...

. ;Bolu klemben: A variant of dry bolu from Banyuwangi, East Java. The shape is elliptical resembles a small sized football or akin to

cocoa pod ''Theobroma cacao'', also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. The largest pro ...

. It is quite similar to kue bahulu. ; Bolu kukus: Steamed bolu cupcake, a popular ''jajan pasar'' (market buys) in Indonesian traditional market. ;Bolu macan or bolu marmer: Tiger stripes or marbled bolu cakes, made by creating stripe pattern using chocolate. ;Bolu lapis mandarin: Two layered square bolu cake, usually plain and chocolate. ; Bolu pandan: Green coloured pandan flavoured bolu sponge cake. ;Bolu pisang:

Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

flavoured bolu cake. ;Bolu tape keju: Bolu cake enrichen with

tape Tape or Tapes may refer to: Material A long, narrow, thin strip of material (see also Ribbon (disambiguation): Adhesive tapes * Adhesive tape, any of many varieties of backing materials coated with an adhesive *Athletic tape, pressure-sensitiv ...

fermented cassava and cheese. ; Kue bahulu or Bolu kering:Small bite-sized bolu cake of Malay cuisine, more prevalent in Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo.

Gallery

References

External links