25/12/2025
Our curator Nina van Dort who self acclaim is not
quite an accomplished cook , self claims did try her hand at baking, the Ceylon Rulang cake after the Heyzer recipe from the complimentary recipe in 2010 by Elenore Heyzer from her Juriaansz mothers recipe, integrated into their Heyzer family Rulang and love cake.
Elenore Heyzer advise in 2010 was to bake well heated oven in the first half time and then bake the Bolo de Amor”, the Ceylon love cake , padded with several layers underneath, on low heat and turn it around until it firm outside dry’s inside yet still had a fudge edge to it .
The Malaccan & Bandar Island mestizo’s & the minority from Thai & Famosa Portuguese mestizo ,made their Sugee love cake were regionally different , resulting in somewhat moderate dry but rich in sugars and semolina decked in butter flavours. In contrast the Ceylon version is fuggy & spicy with its butter & eggy moistures making it rather fudge like and not a solid cake.
The Asian version as with all the love & Sugee cakes, has a slight lean on the original Portuguese Bolo de Amor” yet had suffered the influences of its immigration process, being transported to Asia ,cooked by the indigenous and the enslaved populations: who had to adapt to what they found available which was abundant.
Gone were the Farmers versions in Europe , the Asian versions were not bound by restrictions on sugar cane or molasse’s, honey , even ingredients were added most important the spices became a welcome addition and intensive.
Resulting in the old Portuguese recipes were very different if compared to the Asian versions and that too differed as new influences like the Dutch VOC settlements began to induce new influx products into the local Asian markets with spices from Ba**er and combining the Ceylon and Indian spices the Ceylon love cake have high ratio of spices like nutmeg & cinnamon . Typical Dutch & Germanic influences are the abundances of Butter and eggs.
China too has its hand in these cakes 17th and 18th century cakes . The Ginger preserved and candied were a subtle essential must have not least the impossible to leave out the Persian Rose water essence.
What about rising agents for the Portuguese Bolo de Amor :: that’s is an odd element not always clear ,according to some or many of the 18th century recipes there were not much mention of cake rising elements for Bolo de Amor other than wiping in the egg whites to add air and fluff ,any one who had ever had to bake in a wood oven would soon realize that was of no assistance, support, or benefit in a situation, with a fire oven. To our query the 18the century recipe books did not explain in detail but expected the reader to have the basic skills to fil in the blotches, we assume perhaps some pre- prepared yeast mixture must have been added into the final batter and baked , realistically the whole batter might become a clomp cake and not rise lightly , there the semolina grains might have become larger yet weight down with butter and sugar would be a fudge like cake.
The Malayan version often have bits of almonds as the Penang Eurasians did in their Sugee cake and yes made with Sugee or Semolina wheat flour or what the Ceylon call Rulang , the difference is the Ceylon Burghers did not used flour while the peninsular mestizo used some flour.
In the 2nd picture with almonds our team chef did have a go at the Sugee cake which the Malayan Eurasians of Portuguese Malaca knew as “Bolo de Amor”.
Ms van Dort did recall back in 2015, she did use from memory her mothers recipes with the 30 egg method, it became very large to handle if one had one oven.
She confessed “I over baked the cooking time ”. Unfortunate she did not react in time, working on the research book, over looked the hot oven and its baking limits , resulted in a dry Love cake but tasted delicious, she assured us. We hope she had better experiences even if she has a full schedule with the Book formation . Indeed, even for busy ladies “too many irons in the fire," are a common problem especially when baking with old world recipes
