Vietnam Purple Yam Sponge Cake.

I found the purple yam (refer to the first pic) at the market few days ago. I thought its the ubi keledek at first glance but upon checking with the vege seller, the aunty told me its a type of yam from vietnam. Very rare in local. The flesh is very sticky and looks exactly like huai shan (chinese yam, which is good for cooking soup with chinese herbs) and its as sticky too. I love the tinge of purple around the flesh and decided to buy it and see what I can make with it. The market aunty told me that usually, they make it into sweet dessert but I got an idea boiling in my mind. Hee...

Here I use the same recipe for purple sweet potatoes but substitute the sweet potatoes with the purple yam. I used half of the yam (about 600g), shave away the hard skin and cut into smaller cube & steam at high heat till cooks. Its sticky when raw but surprisingly soft and fluffy when its steamed and cooked. Mashed it up and add into the sponge cake mixture lastly. Put to bake at 180C and bake for 1hr and 20mins to cook. I used an 8" tin so that the cake is thicker and moist inside but at the same time, need more time to cook. Cover the top of the cake after 50mins, with aluminium foil to prevent the top from getting burnt.

I always like to experiment with different type of ingredient with one simple recipe. This one is really nice and I hope others can try it out too. It tastes even better on the next day when I take it out from the fridge.

Enjoy!