Kaya for breakfast

MANY of us grew up having this egg-coconut jam called kaya every morning at our breakfast table.
Slathered generously on a piece of bread or toast, it was comfort food when one needed something quick to get started in the morning.
Spread on thickly over buttered toast, and served with a cup of kopi-o and two soft-boiled eggs, one would have considered it a satisfying breakfast, be it at home or at a favourite kopitiam.
Kaya used to be homemade back in the day, with someone standing over a double boiler gently stirring the mixture of egg, coconut cream, and sugar to prevent it from getting burned.
Nowadays, we can get kaya off the rack in supermarkets.
But for those of us who, once in a while, hanker for that original homemade flavour, we can actually make it ourselves using a slow cooker without having to sweat over a stove stirring and stirring.
The recipe used here makes about 450g of kaya, which would fill two regular-sized jam jars.
If you wish your kaya to have a darker brown colour, you could use brown sugar or gula Melaka.
For a greenish-coloured kaya, you could add two teaspoonfuls of pandan juice (by blending some pandan leaves with a little water).
As for the coconut cream, I had used the instant powdered version, but you could also use the liquid form in cartons, or freshly-squeezed coconut milk.

Slow cooker kaya
Ingredients
200ml thick coconut cream
5 eggs, lightly beaten
200g fine sugar
5 pandan leaves, knotted
Method
1. Pour all the ingredients into the slow cooker. Stir to mix the ingredients. Add in the pandan leaves.
2. Turn on the slow cooker, and put it on high.
3. Stir mixture until sugar dissolves.
4. Cover and leave to cook for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes, remove cover and stir.
6. Continue cooking for a total of 1.5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.
7. The texture of the mixture will become custard-like and rather lumpy.
8. Switch off the slow cooker.
9. Remove the pandan leaves and blend the kaya using a handheld blender, or pour the kaya into a regular blender and blend until smooth.
10.Transfer the kaya into a clean and dry container or jam jar. Leave to cool before refrigerating.