Dodol

by Pauline Chavannes de Senerpont Domis · Published July 20, 2021 · Updated July 20, 2021

Toko Lo is a delicious Dutch catering company owned by Lola van Ruler. She is a professional baker with Indonesian roots. Now she launched an amazing cookbook all about baking Indonesian food. A must have for home cooks. Lola van Ruler’s cookbook is full of sweet familiar sweet bakes, such as pandan cake, ketimoes or ongol-ongol. But Lola also goes wild with savory dishes too such as martabak telor and lemper ajam. She also shares lots of family recipes too. The recipes are very appetizingly photographed without seeming unattainable and the chapters are interspersed with Lola’s personal story about her Indonesian background. Today I make Dodol from Toko Lo’s baking book! Enak sekali and I have not tried dodol before either. Nice nice!

This recipe yields 50 pieces of dodol measuring 2 by 4 centimeters.

Dodol Toko Lo, translated from Indonesian baking book, page 137.

Ingredients

60 grams cornflour
400 ml coconut milk
8 grams vanilla sugar
250 grams palm sugar, finely chopped
1 pandan leaf, knotted

You also need:

whisk
baking tin (20×25), greased and lined with baking paper
baking paper or plastic wrap plastic

Mix the cornstarch with 100 milliliters of water in a bowl to form a thick sauce. Set aside.
In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the coconut milk with the vanilla sugar, palm sugar and pandan leaf to a boil. Pour in the paste while stirring. Reduce the heat to low and stir with a whisk until thick. This takes 3 to 5 minutes.
Remove the pandan leaf and pour the mixture into the baking tin in an even layer.
Smooth with the back of a damp spoon and let cool completely on the counter.
Cut the dodol into 2 by 4 centimeter cubes and serve. Save? Then wrap them individually in baking paper or plastic wrap.

This Lola recipe is so deliciously simple. The ingredients are very clear. I go for good quality gula Jawa, Javanese sugar. I get the gula Jawa at an Asian foodshop. They sell round discs there. I like those best. I get pandan leaves there too, from the freezer. Handy, because you need 1 (or 2) leaves for this dish. The rest can go back in your own freezer.

Lola does not mention salt in the recipe. I’ll add a pinch, but it’s not necessary. My dodol is just a bit high on flavor. I am too cocky (!) and it proves how good Lola’s book is. Icould have known, because Lola writes: “Some recipes you just have to follow exactly,” she writes at page 10.

I start by mixing the cornstarch with 100 liters of water.

Now the rest of the ingredients can go in a pan to heat up to just boiling and to ensure that the sugar melts.

The sugar will melt quickly and everything will smell wonderfully of caramel.

Now that all the sugar has melted, the cornstarch can be added.

In the meantime I grease my baking pan and place baking paper in it. Handy, the paper sticks well this way.

After a few minutes of stirring gently, you will see the batter thicken.

I think it’s thick enough. I’m going to pour in the tin now!

I can’t get the top as smooth as Lola does. But I try to smooth the surface a bit with the back of a wet spoon. Now I have to have patience. The dodol should cool completely.

I didn’t cut my dodol in squares, not rectangles as Lola tells me. Rectangles are easier to eat! Listen to Lola ;-)! I lift them carefully and place them on a piece of pandan leaf. We eat Lola’s dodol with strong coffee for dessert after dinner. It is awesome. I can not stop. We keep the rest of the pieces in the fridge to enjoy for a few days more. Thanks Lola for this delicious treat.