Ombus ombus — Indonesia

Ombus-ombus is a steamed rice flour cake reported from Siborong-Borong, in the North Tapanuli Regency of North Sumatra, where it belongs to the everyday snack repertoire of the Batak communities. The cake is built from a plain rice flour dough wrapped around a filling of palm sugar, giving a soft, faintly sweet result. The name is said to describe the way the cake is eaten: it is served hot, straight from the steamer, and needs to be blown on, ombus meaning to blow or exhale, before the first bite. Whether or not this account of the name is exact, the cake is consistently described as best enjoyed warm, when the filling is still soft and the dough at its most tender. Making it involves working rice flour into a smooth dough, filling small portions with grated palm sugar and sometimes coconut, then wrapping each piece in banana leaf before steaming. The leaf keeps the cake moist through cooking and lends it a faint grassy scent, a preparation it shares with several other Batak rice cakes. Ombus-ombus is reported as a fixture of Batak gatherings, appearing at ceremonies alongside coffee or tea, much like lampet, another rice-based snack from the same region. The two are often mentioned together as the standard sweet accompaniment to a hot drink at Batak social occasions, though ombus-ombus keeps to a single sugar filling rather than the coconut-and-sugar mix used in lampet.