Food Photography Contest - Bibingka
Bibingka is a type of rice cake from the Philippines and in Christian communities in Indonesia. It is usually eaten for breakfast, especially during the Christmas season. It is traditionally cooked in clay pots lined with leaves.
Some authors have proposed a connection between the Goan dessert bebinca (or bibik) and the Southeast Asian bibingka due to the similarity in names. They believe that the Portuguese may have introduced it to Southeast Asia from Goa. But this is unlikely given that Philippines, where bibingka is most widely known, was never a colony of Portugal. They are also very different, the Goan dessert is a type of layered coconut pudding, while bibingka is a baked rice cake and uses rice or cassava flour. The only similarity is that bebinca and bibingka both use coconut milk.[1][2]
The shared origins of bibingka from the Philippines and Indonesia is widely acknowledged, but it is unknown whether it is related at all to the Goan bebinca.
In the Philippines, bibingka is also used as a general term for desserts made with flour and baked in the same manner (similar to puto though the latter term is usually reserved to steamed flour). The term can be loosely translated to "[rice] cake" and has thus been sometimes used for other native cakes made with other types of flour like corn flour, cassava flour, or plain flour, though these are usually considered separate dishes altogether.
