Step 1

Make sure you separate the egg yolks from the white very carefully. Leaving as little trace of egg whites as possible when separating. If there is a trace of egg whites, you can run the egg yolks through the sieve. This is to ensure you don't get any lumps in the kaya. Otherwise, beat the yolks until smooth just using a regular fork is perfectly fine. Run it through the sieve if you want to

Step 2

Place coconut cream, sugars, pandan leaves (for regular kaya), pandan extract or pandan juice (for pandan kaya) in a saucepan

Step 3

Cook over medium heat and just cook until the sugar melted. It shouldn't be boiling, just heated to warm

Step 4

With one hand still beating the egg yolks, the other hand holding the saucepan with coconut cream, add 1/4 of the coconut cream mixture

Step 5

Continue doing so several times

Step 6

Then you can pour the egg mixture back to the saucepan

Step 7

Stir to mix everything and then place this on the stove over low-medium heat

Step 8

Continue to stir over low-medium heat. Don't crank up the heat too much as the texture won't be as smooth. The mixture started to thicken for me at around 8 minutes mark and continue to stir

Step 9

At around 10 minutes mark, the kaya should coat the back of the spatula thickly but still has that spreadable consistency. The kaya will continue to thicken once it cools down completely. So don't cook it until it's too thick. Discard the pandan leaves. If you use pandan juice instead of extract, you may need to cook just a bit longer to get to this consistency. Remove from the heat

Step 10

If the texture of the kaya is not as smooth, you can use a blender or an immersion blender to smooth out the mixture

Step 11

Once the kaya has cooled down completely, transfer to a glass jar and secure the lid. Put in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. I do not recommend freezing as they tend to separate

Step 12

The kaya tends to "harden" a bit after refrigeration. There is fat in the coconut cream. Simply leave them to come to room temperature before serving and they'll soften