Putos are Filipino muffins made with rice flour and steamed. They can be white, yellow, or purple, and are topped with cheese or aniseed. The batter includes flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, milk, and egg whites, and is folded to keep the air trapped inside. They are steamed and can be served with dinuguan.
A puto is a type of Filipino muffin or cake usually made with rice flour. These muffins are always steamed and, depending on the type of flour used, they can be of various colours. Usually white or yellow, they can also be bright shades of purple, with no artificial dyes. Putos are often topped with cheese or aniseed and can easily be made at home.
Flour, baking powder, and sugar are included in a puto, as are butter or margarine, milk, and egg whites. A variety of different milks can be used, depending on the cook’s preference, such as coconut, evaporated, or white. Occasionally both egg white and yolk are used.
To make a puto, the flour and baking powder are sieved together before being included in the batter. Butter is softened, but not melted because it has to be beaten with sugar in a process called creaming. Skimming the butter simply gives it a light texture.
When butter is creamed, the flour and yeast mixture is added to the butter, as is the milk. Both are added in small amounts, alternately, and blended until combined. If only egg whites are used, they are beaten separately until they begin to stiffen. Then, sugar is added and the mixture is beaten until stiff. Although egg whites can be whipped by hand, an electric mixer is recommended for this process.
Once mixing is complete, the stiffened egg white mixture is folded into the flour mixture. Folding is a delicate way of mixing the ingredient which holds the air trapped inside the egg mixture and allows for a soft and light composition of the cooked dessert. Simply mixing ingredients would result in a loss of trapped air and make the finished product flat and heavy.
Usually baked in moulds, putos can be baked in muffin pans. The molds or pans are three-quarters filled with batter and can be lined with banana leaves. Quick-melting cheeses or anise seeds are often placed on top of the dough before baking.
The putos are always steamed. Care must be taken, however, that the condensation in the steamer does not touch the baking muffins. Placing a muslin cloth between the lid and the pan should catch any moisture droplets and ensure that the putos rise properly. Not all steamers will need a cloth, but many metal ones.
For some color variations, using ube powder mixed with all-purpose flour will make the putos a bright lavender and impart a slightly different flavor to the muffins. Ube powder is simply the powdered meat of purple potatoes. Putos are often served with dinuguan, a type of Filipino blood stew that usually includes both pork and offal.
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