A step-by-step guide to making your own kaya

Singaporean Bronica Lim shares her recipe for a smooth, creamy and luscious coconut jam - a staple breakfast spread in many Southeast Asian households - which goes perfectly with piping hot toast.

Makes 500ml
INGREDIENTS
8 tbsp water
25 pandan leaves, 20 leaves cut into pieces, 5 leaves knotted*
10 eggs
450g sugar
500ml coconut milk

DIRECTIONS
1 Blend the water with 5 cut-up pandan leaves until finely crushed. Continue blending, adding 5 cut-up pandan leaves at a time, until you've used the 20 leaves.

2 Sieve the pandan juice and discard the residue.

3 Break the eggs into a stainless steel bowl. 

4 Add the sugar and whisk the mixture until well combined.

5 Add the coconut milk and 25ml of pandan juice, and whisk to combine the mixture. 

6 Add the 5 knotted pandan leaves and double-boil the mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for 1 hour until the mixture becomes thick and creamy. Discard the pandan leaves. If the kaya is lumpy, blend it until smooth.

*Pandan leaves are aromatic tropical leaves commonly used to flavour Southeast Asian cooking

This article was originally published in Simply Her November 2013.