Yummy Bibingka

Bebinca, also known as bibik, is a traditional Goan dessert. The ingredients include plain flour, sugar, ghee (clarified butter) and coconut milk.This food is popular in the Philippines, where it is known as bibingka (bingka in bisaya). The dessert is baked in a specially-made clay oven, with hot coal as a source of heat, placed above. It has to be baked in layers and traditionally has 16 layers. In the Filipino method of preparation, rice flour is used (the baking process is similar to that of the bebinca). Before being served, butter or margarine is spread and sugar is sprinkled over the bibingka. It is typically served with grated coconut. Bibingka is always present for christmas season in the Philippines and also at carnival when their is community fiesta.

Philippines Christmas Delicacies

Philippines is known to have many different kinds of native delicacies. Vendors offer a wealth of native delicacies in front of churches after the Misa de Gallo (Simbang-gabi). After hearing Mass, Filipino families partake of traditional Philippine Christmastime delicacies, either during breakfast at home or immediately outside the church. Some of these are bibingka (rice flour and egg based cake, cooked using coals on top of and under the pastry), Misa de Gallo Puto Bumbong (a purple-colored Filipino dessert made of sweet rice cooked in hollow bamboo tubes placed on a special steamer-cooker. When cooked, they are spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar and grated coconut), salabat (hot ginger tea) and tsokolate (thick Spanish cocoa).