Bukayo is a very popular Filipino dessert and snack. It's a sweet dessert whose main ingredients are coconut meat and white or brown sugar. Cooking it involves simmering strips or grated coconut meat in water and then mixing it with either brown or white sugar. Besides eating it whole as a snack, bukayo is also often used as added ingredient in other popular Filipino snacks, desserts and other recipes. It's also a very common pasalubong to friends and family members. Pasalubong is the Filipino term for gift usually referring to gifts given by someone who just came from another place. 

Bukayo Recipe: Common Ingredients

1.coconut milk – Should be fresh as much as possible.

2. coconut meat – This should come from young coconuts because their meat is soft.

3. sugar

4. pandan leaves

5. vanilla extract

6. cornstarch or all-purpose flour

7. anise – This is optional. You can do without it if it's unavailable. 

Bukayo Recipe: How to Cook Bukayo

1. Take a saucepan and mix most of the ingredients in it. Put in the coconut milk, anise, pandan leaves and sugar into the pan, mix them well together then boil it until it thickens. You should keep watch over the simmering pan at all times, constantly stirring it.

Bukayo recipe; photo by Superpasyal

2. Remove pandan leaves then add vanilla extract.

3. You can add a little all-purpose flour or cornstarch diluted in water to thicken the mixture. However, this is optional.

4. When the mixture is thick enough, you can then add the shredded or grated strips of coconut meat into the mixture. Let it simmer until the mixture becomes firm.

5. If the mixture is firm enough, remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool for a bit. You can then use a spoon or any scooping utensil to spoon the bukayo into individual and small lumps or balls. Let the lumps cool and set. Wrap them in individual wrappers if necessary. 

Alternative bukayo cooking procedure: This is especially used if you're using grated old coconut meat. What you do is cook the grated coconut in a separate pan with a little oil until the coconut turns brown. After that, you can then add the syrup which you cooked in another saucepan and let the ingredients mix together. 

There are a few things that you need to remember when cooking bukayo. First of all, make sure that all the ingredients you are using are fresh from the coconut meats to the type of raw sugar you use. Another is safety. The syrup being cooked in the saucepan can get really hot and can seriously burn your skin if it gets in contact with it. That said, always make use of a cooking glove when cooking and stirring the bukayo mixture. And keep the children away from the cooking area. When scooping the bukayo into lumps or balls, let them cool first before you wrap them in paper or plastic wrappers. 

There you have it. The bukayo recipe and how you can cook it. The ingredients are easy to find and the cooking procedure is very simple. That said, anybody can cook bukayo. Bukayo Recipe.