# How to best use the oven to steam cook?



## gingameggs (Dec 1, 2007)

I am trying to make puto (a Filipino steamed rice cake) that I used to make with my mom as a kid. I can't ask her help, so I am hoping someone here will be able to help. I have a great recipe, but can't remember just how we used to steam them. We used to make ours in mini-muffin tins (we liked the small size) and then steam them in the oven somehow, but when I tried this last night the puto got a ... kind of a ... crust on the top. It wasn't a crunchy, crunchy crust, just not the soft top that I am used to for the puto. 

To steam it, I tried putting water in a metal baking dish with a wire rack on top of that. I placed the mini-muffin tin on the rack and placed a second metal baking dish upside down over the muffin tin, in hopes of encouraging more steaming. Would there have been a better way to do this? I am positive we used to cook it in the oven, and not on a stovetop, but I felt like I could not produce good "steam" to cook it in. Any help would be wonderful, because I love puto and would love to make it as a quick recipe instead of cookies for getting together with friends.

Thanks!
ginger


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## tessa (Sep 9, 2007)

what about sitting the muffin tray directly in to the pan of water, with enough water that it comes up halfway of the tray
and covering it tightly with foil and putting the oven on a slightly lower temperature


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## gingameggs (Dec 1, 2007)

tessa, I will definitely try that, but wouldn't putting the pan directly in the water kind of... boil it instead? I have no clue, but just wondering. Either way, I will give it a try this weekend and see if it works better, thanks for the help! 

ginger


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## [email protected] (Mar 16, 2008)

Only put one deep roasting pan of water underneath your cake, not on top of the rock above your cake. When you turn the oven on, make sure you put the water in there too (at the bottom rack) so that the water will be hot and steaming by the time you put your cake (in the middle rack). It works for me everytime. I have cooked puto this way ever since.


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## tessa (Sep 9, 2007)

it would be like doing a egg custard or bread and butter pudding , and just keep an eye on it and top up the tray with hot water if it needs it, its a great way of doing steam pudding en masse and the tinfoil makes a nice tent to keep the steam in , have the tinfoil loosely wrapped around the dish so that it can expand a bit with the steam and heat


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## dillbert (Jul 2, 2008)

the hot pan of water will definitely increase the humidity inside the oven - which may be what you need (I'm not familiar with the dish you are making) - but it does not produce a cloud of steam in the oven.

for "steam in the oven" try a cast iron pan in the bottom of the stove, preheated, then toss a couple ice cubes in the pan when you want a burst of steam..... the heat from the cast iron does sizzle the cubes into a steam "cloud."

this technique comes out of bread baking where a burst of steam can change how the crust forms.


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