Lapis Surabaya is a three layered cake with a mocha/chocolate middle layer and stacked together with a strawberry jam or butter cream filling in between. I know what you all thinking, Oh God… look how many egg yolks are used for this cake. Wait till you hear Lapis Legit (multi-layered cake) that use 40 egg yolks. It is just like walking one step closer to the heart attack every time you bite them. However it is really worth to try though. Just don’t eat them to often.

Lapis Surabaya is a tricky cake for me to bake. When I first tried to bake it with my old oven few years ago, I couldn’t even start to tell you how many failures I had. The cake always looked nice while still being bake in the oven, and would collapsed or had like a concave uneven surface after you took them out of the oven. I had so many heartbreaks and failures but I eventually managed to receive some orders from my loyal customers. They didn’t even care about the surface as this cake taste great. I figure the oven here somehow has different heat circulation or some sort in comparison to the one used for baking in Indonesia. I know people use to bake with charcoal heat oven traditionally and now they have a big upgrade oven with gas.

Anyway, I never feel discourage to bake them over and over again. Every time I know that one of my relatives have a birthday coming up, I usually give them the cake so I could practice to play with my oven heat, setting and temperature. And this time, the cake is for my auntie (from my husband’s side actually). I should say that this cake is still not that perfect. There are still few improvements that I would do next time I bake them. I guess the oven need to be really hot before the cake is bake, but I was just to worry that it would speed up the browning over the top of the cake before the cake is cooked. Another thing is that my temperature is a little bit too low, so next time I would bake them at 190 or 200 C. You need to adjust according to your oven though as the heat in every ovens vary.

For the butter cream, I usually used the one with sugar cane syrup, but it is too much hassle as I need to steam the rock sugar which took me ages. So I found this great website about cupcakes and various frosting and decided to try the Meringue Butter Cream as I have an unlimited access to egg whites. So here is the link if you would like to know how exactly the butter cream done step by step (http://iheartcuppycakes.com/2009/06/30/practically-perfect-party-cupcake-in-every-way/)

I found that this Meringue Butter Cream tastes great and easy to work with. The only thing I learn is that to put enough butter cream about 5 minutes worth of piping in your bag, or otherwise it would melt and turn watery. You could see the evidence from my rose buds. They have a thick and bulky petals as I would like mine to look more crisp and pointy. Next time I will try royal icing for the roses, but the Meringue Butter Cream recipe is definitely a keeper.

Here is the cake with the candle on, followed by a slice of Lapis Surabaya before it went in to my tummy 😉

Ingredients for Lapis Surabaya

• 20 egg yolks
• 1 egg whites
• 230 gr butter, whipped with mixer until stiff (I used 80 gr butter Wisman brand and 150 gr margarine Blue Band brand)
• 80 gr plain flour
• 165 gr caster sugar
• 12 gr milk powder
• chocolate pasta (I used Cadbury ddrinking chocolate powder for about 3 tbsp)
  
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (I used Queens brand.. try not to use the imitation one)
  
• 1 tsp rhum (I used “Rhum Bakar” Toffieco brand.. I think it is only sold in Indonesia)
• strawberry jam for sticking the layers.
  

Ingredients for Meringue Butter Cream

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites (I used 150 ml egg whites)
• 340 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (I didn’t use this)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!