Bibingka and Puto Bumbong

The two cakes belong to the Simbang Gabi season and appear outside churches in December as the dawn Masses let out. Bibingka is a rice-flour cake baked in a clay pan lined with banana leaf, with coals underneath and a lid of coals on top so it cooks from both sides, brushed with butter and topped with salted duck egg, kesong puti and grated coconut - the leaf scorches and perfumes the whole thing. Puto bumbong is glutinous rice, soaked and coloured purple, steamed in short lengths of bamboo tube until it slides out in cylinders, then dressed with butter, muscovado sugar and coconut. The purple comes traditionally from pirurutong, a heirloom black rice, though food colouring is now common and the difference is noticeable to anyone who has had the real thing. Both are eaten hot, standing up, in the cold hour before sunrise, which is most of the point.

Highlights

• The bibingka pans - clay dishes with coals above and below.
• The banana leaf - scorching under the cake as it bakes.
• The bamboo tubes - puto bumbong steamed and pushed out.
• The toppings - butter, muscovado, coconut and salted egg.

When to go

16 to 24 December, in the hour after the dawn Mass. Some stalls and restaurants sell them year-round, but the cold pre-dawn plaza is the setting they belong to.

Good to know

Both are best eaten immediately and go stodgy cold. Much puto bumbong is coloured rather than made with pirurutong rice. Stalls are busiest right as Mass ends, so expect a queue.

Nearby

Every parish plaza has them in December; Intramuros, Quiapo and the old provincial churches are the atmospheric settings.