lupis — Central Java, Indonesia

Lupis is an Indonesian sweet made from glutinous rice that is packed tightly into banana leaf and boiled until the grains fuse into a dense, chewy cake. It belongs to the wide family of Indonesian glutinous rice desserts and is shaped either into cylinders, in the manner of lontong, or folded into a triangle depending on the region and the cook. The cake is reported widely across Indonesia and sold at market stalls nationwide, but it is closely associated with Central and East Java as well as West Sumatra, and this entry follows the Central Javanese cylinder-shaped version. It is a common breakfast food and an afternoon snack, sold from carts and stalls rather than served as a restaurant dish. Glutinous rice is soaked, then rolled tightly inside a strip of banana leaf into a firm cylinder, secured at both ends and boiled for several hours until fully set and dense. Once cooled, the leaf is peeled away and the cake is sliced into rounds, then coated in freshly grated coconut and finished with a thick syrup of palm sugar melted with a little water and a pandan leaf. The long boiling time is what gives lupis its dense, sticky bite, distinct from steamed glutinous rice cakes cooked in shorter time; households in Central Java tend to serve it with a darker, more concentrated palm sugar syrup than versions found elsewhere. It is eaten by hand or with a small stick, usually alongside other rice-based sweets such as klepon or cenil.