Getuk — East Java, Indonesia

Getuk is a Javanese sweet made from cassava, a starchy root that is cooked until soft and then worked into a smooth, sticky mass with coconut and sugar. The finished sweet has a dense, slightly chewy texture and a mild flavour that carries the sugar and coconut easily, and it is eaten in small pieces rather than as a full dessert course. The sweet is reported from East Java, where it is sold by street vendors who carry it through neighbourhoods, alongside related cassava and rice sweets such as cenil. It sits within a family of Javanese snacks built on cheap, filling starches turned sweet through the addition of coconut and palm or cane sugar. To prepare the plain version, cassava is peeled, boiled until tender and mashed while still warm, then mixed with grated coconut, sugar and a small amount of salt to balance the sweetness; palm sugar can replace white sugar to give the paste a brownish colour and a deeper flavour. A second method passes the boiled cassava through a meat grinder instead of mashing it by hand, producing a smoother paste that is cut into small cubes known as getuk lindri; butter, milk powder, vanilla and food colouring are worked into the grinder version to soften its texture and vary its appearance. This East Java version favours the vendor-sold getuk lindri style, coloured and cut into neat cubes for easy sale, while the plainer mashed getuk remains the simpler home preparation from which the ground version developed.