Chinese New Year Cookies: Kuih Bangkit
Kuih Bangkit is one of the classic Chinese New Year cookies (others are Kuih Kapit @ Love Letter and Pineapple Tarts) loved by Malaysians. What’s loved about this traditional Nyonya cookie is the aromatic smell that welcomes you the moment you bite into the crispy outer later and then got jolted into a world of melt in your mouth excitement. Oh yeah!
To be frank with you I’m not a big fan of Kuih Bangkit but my sister is such a HUGE fan of this cookie. So much a fan that she stubbornly picked up a cookie that has fallen on the floor and intend to bake it. Horror! Thank God I was able to coaxed her and finally got rid of that 1 piece of ‘dirty’ cookie. Haha
This is our first time baking Kuih Bangkit and I gotta say it was very easy. In my opinion this is one of the simplest cookie I’ve ever made.
The recipe calls for arrowroot flour (lu-lu hoon) however we couldn’t find it anywhere (not that we look hard enough anyway haha) so we substitute it with sago flour (advice from grandma).
The preparation of ingredient begin a day earlier. You need to fry cornflour, arrowroot flour (in our case sago flour) and pandan leaves in a wok under low fire until the flour is light and it doesn’t stick to the side of the wok. This should take about 30 minutes. Transfer the flour to a container and leave to cool overnight.
A day later…
Whisk egg yolks and castor sugar until thick.
Next add coconut milk (santan) and stir gradually. We didn’t use all the milk.
Now add enough flour and knead the combination for about 5 minutes to form a pliable dough (means soft and flexible). We also didn’t use all the flour. This is the tricky part. You gotta ‘agak-agak’ (guesstimate).
As long as you get a soft & flexible dough then it’s good to go.
We bought 2 plastic Kuih Bangkit moulds as the wooden ones is 5-6 times pricier. *gags*
Lightly dust the moulds with the remaining flour. Notice how much flour we have left in the container.
Take a small piece of dough and press into the mould. Trim the excess dough off with a butter knife (or a baking spatula). In our case we just use our fingers to trim it. Easy! Haha
Now knock the mould gently on the table to dislodge the cookies.
Arrange the cookies on a baking tray (remember to line it with baking paper) and bake for 10-20 minutes in 150OC. For us, we bake ‘em for 25 minutes as we prefer a crisper and brownish outside.
Fresh from the oven. YUM!
Optional: Add red dot (from red food dye) using toothpick (I used fork haha) on Kuih Bangkit with flower designs.
Cool them and store in air-tight containers.
Additional notes:
1. A fascinating fact: During kneading, you can feel the dough become hot. Just some chemistry effect!
2. When you have a ‘wet’ dough, you will find difficulties to dislodge cookies from the mould. Add some flour and re-knead. When you have a ‘hard’ dough, you will find the dislodged cookies in crumbly state. Add some coconut milk and re-knead. All this shouldn’t be a problem if you follow the method above.
3. Remember to cover the rest of the dough with a damp cloth while you’re busy moulding Kuih Bangkit as the dough will harden up. In our case we took a handful of the dough (uncover) for moulding and cover the rest.
4. If the dough does harden up, add a little coconut milk and re-knead the dough.
5. Make sure you dust the mould with enough flour. The first or second time is usually the hardest to dislodge the cookies from the mould. After that it’s easy.
6. Because this is the first time we’re making the cookies, we tried baking a few pieces in the oven to adjust the cooking time.
Yields 140 pieces.
Kuih Bangkit – Chinese New Year Cookies
recipe from Nyonya Flavors
150g “Butterfly” brand cornflour
600g arrowroot flour (lu-lu hoon)
1-2 pandan leaves, cut into 3cm lengths
3 egg yolks
150g castor sugar
250ml thick coconut milk, extracted from 1 grated coconut
1. Fry the cornflour, arrowroot flour and pandan leaves in a dry wok over a low fire until the flour is light and leaves the side of the wok, about 30 minutes. Leave to cool overnight.
2. Whisk the egg and sugar until very thick and stir in 250ml of coconut milk gradually (you may not need to use all the milk). Then knead in enough floor to form a soft pliable dough, about 5 minutes.
3. Lightly dust a wooden Kuih Bangkit mould with the remaining flour. Press a small piece of dough into each of the designs on the mould, trim off excess dough with a butter knife and knock the mould gently against the worktop to dislodge the cookies.
4. Arrange the Kuih Bangkit on lightly floured baking trays. Bake at 150OC (350OF) for 10-20 minutes. If a pale white Kuih Bangkit is preferred, remove cookies after 15 minutes. If a more aromatic and crisp cookies is the preference, bake it until just very lightly browned. Cool and store in air-tight jars.
Enjoy!
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