Kaya toast
The breakfast of Singapore's kopitiam, built on a contrast that sounds odd and works perfectly: hot toast, sweet coconut jam and a thick, cold slab of butter that melts only in your mouth. Alongside comes a saucer of barely set eggs — not boiled but covered in just-boiled water and left, so the white stays half liquid.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Coconut jam 40 min
- Eggs 10 min
- Toast 8 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneDissolve the sugar in coconut milk
Warm the coconut milk with the sugar, salt and the pandan leaves tied in a knot, until the sugar dissolves. The leaves are knotted so they can be lifted out in one motion — they give kaya its scent and greenish colour.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 250 ml coconut milk · 130 g sugar · 4 pcs pandan leaves · 1 pinch salt
Temper the eggs and cook over steam
Beat the eggs, whisk in a ladle of the warm milk, and pour everything into a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Kaya is essentially a thick coconut egg custard — over direct heat the eggs would quickly scramble into lumps.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 250 ml coconut milk · 130 g sugar · 4 pcs pandan leaves · 1 pinch salt
Stir without stopping for 30–35 minutes
Stir continuously for 30–35 minutes, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. This is the one demanding part of the recipe and there is no shortcut — a pause in the stirring means lumps on the bottom.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 250 ml coconut milk · 130 g sugar · 4 pcs pandan leaves · 1 pinch salt
A clean line drawn on the spoon — the kaya is done.Remove the pandan and let the kaya cool
Lift out the leaves and transfer the kaya to a clean jar. It thickens noticeably as it cools; spread it on the toast at room temperature. This batch makes about 400 g, far more than one breakfast — keep the rest in the fridge for up to a week.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 250 ml coconut milk · 130 g sugar · 4 pcs pandan leaves · 1 pinch salt
Cover the eggs with boiling water and wait
Put the eggs in a bowl, cover with boiling water 2 cm above them, put a plate on top and leave 8–10 minutes (longer for large eggs). You are not boiling them — they set in the cooling water. The result: barely set white and a completely liquid yolk. Eggs made this way are undercooked — for children, pregnant women and older people, serve hard-boiled eggs instead.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 2 tsp dark soy sauce · ½ tsp white pepper
No heat — the eggs set in cooling water.Toast thin slices
Toast the bread dry, to a deep gold and thoroughly crisp. The bread should be thin, 1 cm at most, because a thicker slice overwhelms the layer of kaya and butter, and those are the dish.
Ingredients: 8 pcs white bread · 80 g butter
Assemble with cold butter
Spread kaya on one slice and lay a thick, cold slab of butter on the other — cut from the block, not spread. Close and cut in half. The butter should melt from the heat of the toast as you eat; spread, it soaks in and disappears.
Ingredients: 8 pcs white bread · 80 g butter
A slab cut from the block, never spread.Serve with the eggs and soy sauce
Crack the eggs into a saucer, pour over dark soy and grind on white pepper. The toast is dipped into the egg — these are not two dishes but one, and the salty sauce balances the sweetness of the kaya.
Ingredients: 4 pcs eggs · 2 tsp dark soy sauce · ½ tsp white pepper
Before you start
Without pandan
Fresh or frozen pandan leaves are sold at Asian grocers; bottled extract also works (half a teaspoon), though the colour comes out more artificial. Without it the kaya is still good, just plainly coconut and egg.
Caramel kaya
Brown kaya, associated with Hainanese cooks, starts by caramelising 30 g of the sugar to a dark caramel and adding it to the milk. The jam comes out brown and distinctly deeper — both versions are popular and often sold side by side.
Lumps can be rescued
If the kaya splits despite the stirring, push it through a fine sieve or blitz it briefly. The texture comes back almost entirely — one of the few cases where a blender saves a dessert instead of ruining it.
