Bebinca is a sweet Goan Indian treat and nothing beats homemade Bebinca.
Coconut, spices and clarified butter make this dessert a hit!
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What is Bebinca?
Bebinca is a rich multi-layered baked pudding cake from the state of Goa in India.
The queen of Goan desserts is usually made for special celebrations and Christmas.
This decadent dessert is made with multiple eggs, coconut milk and warm spices.
While the ingredient list is not long, patience and time are essential, which make this dessert come together in many consecutively baked soft ghee-soaked layers.
Bebinca melts in your mouth, leaving a delicate hint of coconut and cardamom on your palate.
Traditionally, this cake is made in an earthen pot over a fire fed by coconut husks and can take a whole day to bake as each layer is added individually.
The cake can have 7 to 16 layers.
While most restaurants and home cooks nowadays use an oven to make this delicacy, cooks in rural Goa traditionally make the cake over a fire, which imparts the bebinca a complex smoky flavor and an added layer of caramelization.
Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients to make Bebinca from scratch at home.
- Coconut milk
- Sugar
- Egg yolks
- All-purpose White Flour
- Nutmeg & Cardamom
- Ghee — Clarified Butter
How to make Bebinca?
To make Bebinca you will need some time and patience. It comes together, a layer at a time.
Here is an overview on how it's done, US and metric measurements are located at the bottom of this post.
Step 1 — prepare the batter
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the coconut milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
Whisk the egg yolks separately and then add them to the coconut and sugar mixture and whisk everything thoroughly.
Add the flour and spices and mix the batter well.
Step 2 — bake your first layer
Add ghee into a baking pan so that it coats the bottom.
Pour a couple of ladles of the mixture into the pan to create the first layer of the bebinca.
Put the pan in the oven and bake it on the grill setting until the layer gets cooked.
Step 3 — repeat and bake
Repeat the process of layering ghee with the batter until you have finished the batter and achieved the desired number of layers.
After cooling the cake, turn it over and ease it gently out of the baking pan.
Enjoy your delicious and authentic Goan dessert!
📖 Recipe
Bebinca - Layered Goan Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 12.7 Ounces Coconut Milk thick
- 10.6 Ounces Powdered Sugar aka castor sugar
- 10 Egg Yolks
- 3.5 Ounces All-purpose Flour
- 1 ½ Teaspoon Nutmeg grated
- 1 Teaspoon Green Cardamom Ground
- Clarified Butter aka ghee, as per your needs
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl stir in the coconut milk and sugar. Whisk well until the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Separate the eggs and place the yolks into a mixing bowl. Whisk them and then slowly pour and whisk the yolks into the coconut milk sugar mixture.
- Sieve your flour into the coconut milk batter and add the grated nutmeg and cardamom powder as well.
- Whisk the whole content to a smooth crepes like batter consistency without lumps.
- Grab a square or round pan (I prefer square, size of 9.5 inch length x 5 inch breadth and 2 inch deep) and add 1 tablespoon of clarified butter. Place it into the oven for a minute so that the clarified butter melts. Take out and pour about 2 - 2 ½ ladles into the pan. Allow it to spread evenly.
- Place into the oven and select the grill mode (not all-round heat but the heat from top to down) and allow it to cook for 18 minutes or until you can see the top all brown and hard. Your oven might require more or less time so keep an eye on it!
- Take it out again and spread ½ Tablespoon clarified butter all over the last layer. Then again pour in 2 - 2 ½ ladles full of batter and keep under the grill in the oven until it gets dark and hard (about 18 minutes).
- Repeat the ½ Tablespoon clarified butter and 2 ½ ladles of batter each time until you have used all the batter. You should be having 5-6 layers at the end.
- Remember to keep an eye on your cake so that it doesn't over cook or under cook!
- Once the last layer has cooked add ½ Tablespoon of clarified butter and let it cool.
- Once cooled, carefully detach the borders of the cake from the mold with a knife and topple the cake carefully over.
- To serve cut thin slices and enjoy.
Nutrition
Serving
In Goa, bebinca is traditionally given to friends and neighbors as part of a festive platter that would contain other Goan delicacies such as spritz cookies, nankatai, tutti frutti cake, neureos, vodde, kulkul, and marzipan.
In family restaurants in Goa, bebinca is served with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. The buttery dessert goes well with a strong cup of coffee.
Bebinca has also inspired chefs from around the world to create their own twists on this 18th century colonial dessert by creating bebinca-flavored cheesecakes and crème brûlée.
History of Bebinca
The origin of this dessert is not documented and only exists in the form of a legend of a Portuguese nun who lived in the Santa Monica Convent in Old Goa in the 18th century.
During that time, nuns in Portugal used egg whites to starch their habits and in the winemaking process, which resulted in large quantities of left-over egg yolks.
Thus, Portuguese cuisine developed a lot of egg-rich pastries and deserts to utilize the overabundance of egg yolks.
The Portuguese nuns continued their starching habits in their Indian colony of Goa.
This is why bebinca has a large number of eggs, something which is unusual for Indian deserts. The sacred nature of sweets, due to their function as an offering to the gods, requires being vegetarian.
As the legend goes, a home-sick nun was dreaming of the seven hills of Lisbon and made a dessert that consisted of seven layers as a tribute to her distant hometown.
She showed it to the head priest, who asked for more layers to be added, and thus the bebinca of sixteen layers was born.
It is unclear how the bebinca has traveled the world, but similar desserts by that name can be found in Mozambique and Macao.
Surprisingly, it is not found in Brazil and Portugal; bebinca can only be eaten in Goan restaurants.
This hints at the possibility that the legend might be true and this rich and labor-intensive dessert did indeed originate in Goa.
have you tried making it before giving it a three star. Then you are not a goan.
This is completely new to me, I bet this is fabulous!
This layered cake looks divine..yummy 🙂
What a stunning dessert! The layers make it so special, but it doesn't look that tricky to make. I can see why it's a favorite recipe 🙂
That's a beautiful looking cake and how lovely to have a recipe from your mother in law. I have not heard of this cake but it's good to know it's very popular. I love how the tradition has been to make this at Advent xx
I know Bebinca from my Goan friends and I love it. Takes me back to my childhood. Your Bebinca looks so delicious. Looks like Christmas has come early on your blog 😀
That is a beautiful little cake!!! I've never had anything like it. Love the flavor of the cardamom and coconut. Would love a slice right now!
Awesome. There's no takers for sweet stuffs in my house. This layered cake will be awesome when guests come over.
I love the consistency of this cake Helene!
Hello, is it safe to mail this? I want to send it to fam for Christmas
but I don't want to make them sick. I know there are lots of yolks.
Hello Taryn,
I don't think you can send homemade bebinca or any other perishable goods via post or courier.
I would like to make this and send to my family for Christmas.
Is it safe to send it in the mail? I don't want to make everyone
sick. Hope to hear back!
Hello.
Trying to make the cake.
But I need to know if to use the bottom or top of the owen.
Hi Andreas, if you have a bigger oven use the top or center since the layer should get kind of caramelized.
I absolutely love Bebinca. I first had it when a Goan colleague brought it to office post Christmas. I find it irresistible yet I avoid eating it coz it is so rich!
I love this cake... great flavors. 🙂
I'm speechless. This is just gorgeous Helene. I am always in awe of your recipes.
So happy you joined us this week.
Helene,
Thank you for posting this family recipe. I love Bebinca and your method is very similar to mine. I would like to ask a few questions and have some suggestions.
Why powdered sugar instead of regular sugar? Maybe your mum-in-law has the answer.
Out here in the US, we have different kinds of ovens. The grill you mention is known as a broiler. The placement of the bebinca pan height to the broiler element is critical to making perfect even layers. I have found that purchasing an oven thermometer does the trick. Adjust the grill rack so that the thermometer reads 350 deg celsius. If your broiler has two settings, high and low, the low setting is the one to use. The high setting outputs 400 deg celsius. During broiling, you'll see the batter puff up. Don't panic, the low broil setting cycles the broiler on and off. During the off cycle, the batter loses it's puffiness ans settles down to an even layer.
Another trick is to use marked measuring cup, so that the poured batter is of consistent quantity.
Hope this helps! I'm looking forward to many more great recipes from your blog.
Big Error! deg celsius should be corrected to deg Farenheit. Ever since I've lived in the US, I mistakenly confuse the metric measurements with the American (english) ones.
This is so cool that it's cooked one layer on top of the other and under the grill. Brilliant. I'm trying to imagine the flavors. 🙂
G'day Helene and thank you for allowing me to learn something new, true!
I had never heard of this dish before and looks lovely too!
Cheers! Joanne
Mmm. I am so very intrigued, Helene. Love a slice of the cake / pudding...Undoubtedly the cardamom, nutmeg and coconut make for a delicious marriage!
P.s. How very wonderful that you've inherited your mother-in-law's recipe. I presume this is an honor and a sign of deep love <3
That is gorgeous! I've never had anything like that before - it looks wonderful.
Wow - this cake looks delish! Growing up my parents made a traditional Sri Lankan Christmas cake - it was so rich and so good! But if it had been made all the time, it would have lost its appeal for sure - just like you said.
Thanks for sharing this!
Wow, this is one gorgeous presentation, Helene! It looks like a perfect cake for the holidays.
Awww I LOVE bebinca! I will have to give it a go!! Thanks for sharing this Helene! 🙂
I have had something like this before, can't remember when now but I really liked it, so different and so good.
I really appreciate the step by step photos! I have never tried bebinca before but I definitely agree about keeping things special. Eating in season, saving holiday treats for the holidays is what makes it special. If we had this every day, it would be ordinary and not a treat. Well, this may never be ordinary! I am so very curious to try this. Thank you for making this a part of Christmas Week!
Two of the places I've lived, Brazil and Malaysia, also have a similar dessert. I wonder if it's the Portuguese influence. Your bebinca looks wonderful, Helene! Bet your mother-in-law is proud!
I've been stumbling around via Pinterest, finding great food blogs like yours for a while now, and I'm glad to have found this one in particular! I love finding new sweets recipes like this cake.
I never win the giveaways, but I'd love to win this one, I'd buy clear glass bottles for my Kombucha!
This is a new dish to me - sounds totally delightful. Really great flavors - thanks so much for this.
What a beautiful cake! I know I'd love the flavors!
Happy day #3!
A wonderful cake! I'm sure it tastes divine.
Cheers,
Rosa