Four Seasons Blog Hop #35 (January 31 2014)

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Four Seasons Blog Hop - Easy Life Meal & Party PlanningWelcome to the Four Seasons Blog Hop

A party where we can celebrate the greatness that each season brings to our lives.

So Let’s Get This Party Started!!Let's Get this Party Started Share your  food creations, gardening, clever projects, tablescapes, decorations, party themes, and inspirational knowledge … Ok, you get the point.  Join us every Thursday (opens Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm). Please stay for awhile and show some love to the guests, join us in the fun and grab a button. Four Seasons Blog Button

We will share your posts in a variety of ways on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.  We will also have features of the week! Be sure to follow our Four Seasons Board on Pinterest!  By participating in this linky party, you agree to have your posts shared on social media and Pinterest and to receive email and Google notifications for reminders about the party. If you don’t want to receive notifications, please let us know.

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How About Another Type Of Lapis–Coffee Peppermint Lapis

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INTRODUCTION

This is third in my series of lapis or layered cake and none is the traditional common lapis cake like lapis legit or lapis Surabaya. Reasons are simple, I am still don’t willing to have 30 egg whites in my house. I have decided to share this simple lapis modified from my butter cake recipe.

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Simple means that ingredients and method are rather simple and based on this basis, you can always prepare one lapis that suits your taste buds. Again, I have to caution readers that the texture will definitely not as moist as the traditional lapis that have 30 egg yolks or 500 grams of butter,  but for a change you can try this lapis.

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This is a coffee peppermint lapis. Chocolate peppermint lapis is very common in Sarawak and for certain reason that I will not want to disclose here, I have chose coffee instead. If you want, you can substitute coffee with 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate powder. If you do not want to make a lapis and just follow this recipe and you will come out with a wonderful coffee butter cake.

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I shall not dwell into details of the lapis and do consider making one if you are interested. Remember, based on this basic recipe, variations are many.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: 8” x 8” square baking tin

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  • 300 grams of butter, soften at room temperature
  • 300 grams of eggs or 6 eggs (separate into egg whites and egg yolks)
  • 300 grams of self raising flour
  • 300 grams of icing sugar or castor sugar (divide into 150grams and 150 grams respectively)
  • 300 grams of fresh cream
  • 100 grams of milk
  • 3 tablespoons of instant coffee powder (mixed with 2 tablespoon of water)
  • 1 tablespoon of peppermint essence
  • 1 tablespoon of apple green permitted food colouring

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

  • Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius

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  • Cream half of the sugar (150 grams) and butter until creamy and pale. Add the egg yolks. Eggs yolk should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg yolk settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl.

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  • Shift the flour into the mixing bowl, use the machine lowest speed to stir until well mix. Add in milk and cream gradually until all milk and cream were added. Set the batter asides for later folding with egg whites.

  • In another big mixing bowl, place your egg whites and  beat using the machine whisk to whisk the egg whites until soft peak. Note that the bowl have to be extremely clean, dry and free of any oils. When the volume expands, add in the sugar (150g) gradually, beat until thick and glossy and until all the sugars dissolved.  

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  • Spoon the egg whites to the batter and use a spatula and fold in the egg whites as swiftly and lightly possible until all the ingredients are well mixed.

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  • Divide the batter into two equal portion. For one portion add the coffee paste (3 tablespoons of instant coffee powder plus 2 tablespoons of hot water), stir until well combined. In another portion, add in 1 tablespoon of apple green permitted food colouring and 1 tablespoon of peppermint essence. Stir until well combined. Note that if you want to have a stronger contrast between the layers, you have to add in more apple green and coffee paste as this junction.

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  • Heat the greased baking tin for about 1 minutes and turn the oven to top grill mode. Put 2 ladles of batter in the tin and ensure that it is equally distributed in the tin. Bake for 5-6 minutes until the surface start to turn brownish. Take out and use the fondant icing smoother to roughly press again the cake (to ensure that it is flat). If you note of some bubbling, use a toothpick to poke the hole and let the trapped air escape.

  • Put another 2 ladles of batter, bake until brown and press it slightly. Repeat the same procedures until all the batters are finished. After all the batter have finished, for the last layer, reduce the oven to 175 degree Celsius and resume to the “top heat and bottom heat” mode, bake for additional 10-15 minutes. Cooled completely before cutting. Keep in refrigerator for up to at least 2 weeks. For the first few days, it is best to let it rest in the room temperature to absorb moisture back to the cake. As with all lapis, lapis that freshly baked will be slightly dry.

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CONCLUSION

If you are looking for a change, do try this lapis alternative. Variations of lapis are endless. This lapis is a 6 whole eggs lapis and therefore it will be lighter than the other lapis. You can also consider having cream cheese chocolate lapis and Horlicks lapis here.

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Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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For more Chinese New Year Cookies and Cakes, you can click the pictures below.

Chinese New Year Cake 21

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For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .  

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If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

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Four Seasons Blog Hop #34 (January 23 2014)

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Four Seasons Blog Hop - Easy Life Meal & Party PlanningWelcome to the Four Seasons Blog Hop

A party where we can celebrate the greatness that each season brings to our lives.

So Let’s Get This Party Started!!Let's Get this Party Started Share your  food creations, gardening, clever projects, tablescapes, decorations, party themes, and inspirational knowledge … Ok, you get the point.  Join us every Thursday (opens Wednesday evening at 6:00 pm). Please stay for awhile and show some love to the guests, join us in the fun and grab a button. Four Seasons Blog Button

We will share your posts in a variety of ways on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.  We will also have features of the week! Be sure to follow our Four Seasons Board on Pinterest!  By participating in this linky party, you agree to have your posts shared on social media and Pinterest and to receive email and Google notifications for reminders about the party. If you don’t want to receive notifications, please let us know.

FEATURED

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

I Have No Patience And I Prepared My Instant Bak Kwa–Instant Chinese Pork Jerky

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INTRODUCTION

I am busy baking my cookies and in between my oven slots, I have prepared some Chinese pork jerky or “Bak Kwa”. As long as I can remember, we always have Bak Kwa during Chinese New Year. When I was a kid, it is once in a year delicacy served during Chinese New Year. Then, most Bak Kwa were imported from China and were mostly air dried. It is hard, chewy and difficult to bite. As years went by, there are more and more varieties and what is the most common type of Bak Kwa nowadays is the sweetened and soft type of Bak Kwa mostly made from minced pork. 

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I loved Bak Kwa for its sweet and soft texture. It is essentially barbecue sliced or minced pork. In Singapore, one kilogram of Bak Kwa during Chinese New Year can fetch as high as SGD40-50. It is quite costly but presentable gift to relatives and friends.

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Since I am lazy and I knew Wikipedia will have a detailed write up on Bak Kwa, therefore, for the sake of my international readers, I have reproduced it here for information.

“Bak kwa is the Hokkien translation for Rou gan (肉干). It is a Chinese salty-sweet dried meat product similar to jerky. It originated from the Fujian province in China where it is considered a Hokkien delicacy. Bak kwa is made with a meat preservation and preparation technique originating from ancient China. The general method for production have remained virtually unchanged throughout the centuries, but the techniques have been gradually improved. It is often made with beef, pork, or mutton, which are prepared with spices, sugar, salt, and soy sauce, while dried on racks at around 50 °C to 60 °C 

Bak kwa is immensely popular in Singapore and Malaysia where it is usually eaten during Chinese New Year. When Chinese immigrants brought this delicacy over to Singapore and Malaysia, it began to take on local characteristics. A notable example lies in the preparation of Bak kwa, where the meat once still being air-dried is instead grilled over charcoal.[1] This imparts a more smokier flavour to the meat. The Singapore and Malaysia versions of Bak kwa are also sweeter than its mainland China counterpart with many different variations adapted to suit the local palette such as chilli bak kwa.” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakkwa)

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Preparing Bak Kwa has been in my to do list for quite a while. It came across my mind after I issued my Chinese Barbecue Pork in October 2013. I did not take a step to prepare it as most recipe will call for long hours (or at least overnight) of marinating, some even called for air drying or sun drying before the grilling. I knew I did not have the patience and with an oven slot available 2 days ago, I have experimented to see if there is an easy way to prepare this delicious pork jerky.

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Frankly, I did not follow any recipe. I browsed through a few recipes in Mandarin and looking at the marinating agent. Apparently, each recipe have its own marinating agent and therefore I have decided to use my Chinese barbecue pork marinating agent plus a new ingredient (maltose) to prepare the pork jerky. Since this is an experiment (that turns out to be very satisfactory), I just add the marinating agents to my minced meat, use a food processor to mince it again, and test grilled a small portion of the minced pork in the toaster oven (mini oven). I found that the result were satisfactory and I continue to grill all the minced meat in my oven. I started the preparation at 5:00 pm and I have my Bak Kwa ready at 7:00 pm.

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I am pleased with the results. My trial was based on my beliefs that since it is “double minced pork”, all the spices and marinating agents can penetrate the pork very easily. Instant grilling will definitely take longer timing since it is wetter. As long as we can force the water out of the meat – it will become a piece of meat with spices and seasonings that we like. Therefore, the temperature and timing of grilling will be rather different. Since I can prepare Bak Kwa within 2 hours, it means that I can have Bak Kwa as one of the household dishes to go with rice or porridges at any time I want.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

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  • 1 kg of minced pork belly （五花肉碎）
  • 1/2 cup of sugar （白糖）
  • 3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce （黑酱油）
  • 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce （耗油）
  • 1 teaspoon of five spice powder （五香粉）
  • 3 tablespoons of maltose  or honey (麦芽糖或蜜糖）
  • 5 tablespoons of Chinese cooking wines (烹饪白或红糟酒）
  • 2 tablespoons of red fermented bean curd (红腐乳) juice (not in picture) please refer Chinese Barbecue Pork for pictures.
  • 2 tablespoons of maltose (during day of roasting) – Plus 2 tablespoon of water

Note that this recipe is very flexible. It is advisable to test grill or test pan fried a small portion of the minced meat before you start grilling the whole batch. Feel free to adjust the quantities and suggested ingredients to suit your taste buds.

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

  • Preheat the oven to 150 degree Celsius and line 2 large baking trays with baking paper

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  • Put the minced meat and all the ingredients into the food processor. Minced until fine. As I like my Bak Kwa to be a bit chewy, therefore, I did not minced until very fine. Ensure that all the seasonings are well combined.

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  • Remember to test bake a small portion before you follow the following steps. Add additional seasonings if preferred.

  • Divide the minced meat into 2 portions for the 2 baking trays. Put a piece of clingy wrap and use a rolling pin to spread as evenly as possible and the thickness should be about 0.5 cm. Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes. During this process, you will start to witness the minced meats start to shrink and water starts to secret out. As long as the meat transform into a big piece of meat without breaking, proceed to the next step.

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  • Take out the baking tray out and throw away the baking paper. Transfer the semi grilled pork out and put it in plate. Meanwhile, put a cooling rack in the baking tray. Put the meat on the cooling rack (with baking tray). Brush the meat with the additional maltose (2 tablespoons of maltose or honey with 2 tablespoons of water. If too sticky, add another tablespoon of water. ) evenly. Send back to the oven. Turn on the top grilled heat at 180 degree Celsius. Grilled for about 5 minutes or until it reach the desired colour tone and dries up. Take out the baking tray, turn the Bak Kwa, brush and baked again for another 5 minutes or until it reach the desired colour tone and dries up.

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  • Immediate after you take out from the oven, it will be rather dry and slightly crispy because of the maltose effect, if you rest it for second day in the room temperature, it will be softer.

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CONCLUSION

A simple fast (almost instant) recipe of Bak Kwa for you try out. It is full of flexibilities. Let me know if this is what you like. Remember to test grill a small piece prior to grilling the entire kilogram of minced meats.

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Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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This recipe was included in Page 54 and Page 55 of the following E-book. 

For more Chinese New Year related cookies, snack and steamed cake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy Chinese New Year Recipes – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD3.50. The recipes covered various recipes from auspicious radish cake to nian gao to traditional kuih bangkit to trendy London almond cookies. Of course not forgetting both type of pineapple tarts. You can purchase by clicking the link above. You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at [email protected] and separate arrangement can be made.

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Seaweed Fish Fillet Snack (紫菜鱼丝条）

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INTRODUCTION

I was rather surprised to see this fish meat snack in Singapore. It is a snack that I am very familiar with because there is a factory from my home town Kuching. Sarawak, Malaysia that produces that. I have first seen this snack for at least more than 10 years and I never bought this for Chinese New Years until this year. 

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I am unsure who started to combine Nori seaweed with this snack. Nori seaweed is the seaweed used for Sushi. The fish snack were glued together with a piece of seaweed by egg whites.  It was either baked or deep fried and currently, air fried. The original fish snack were very chewy but when baked, deep fried and air fried, it became very crispy. Since this had became a popular snack during Chinese New Year, I have decided to prepare this as well.

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There are many ways of preparing it. One of the popular way is to put a piece of Nori seaweed on top of the a flat piece of fish snack and baked in the oven at 150 degree Celsius for about 10 minutes. That is a good way as it will shorten the baking time and the snack will be crispy. However, it is rather difficult to serve and store since you will need a container big enough to keep a square piece of snack (about 5 cm by 5 cm). It can’t put in the cookies tray due to its size.

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Another way of preparation is to bundle the fish snack stripes with some seaweed. That again have some disadvantages.as the place that was bundled is not easy to get baked (and hence became chewy and not crispy). While all other part become crispy, that particular part becomes chewy..

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Taking these two factors into consideration, I told myself that I wanted one that is easy to keep and crispy. Therefore, I have designed mine in this simple pattern for your consideration.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

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  • Some pieces of Nori seaweed (Note that what you seen in this picture is not the Nori seaweed for Sushi. It is the slightly sweetened seaweed snack that you can eat instantly).
  • Some fish snack sheets or fish snack stripes
  • One whole egg (Lightly beaten)

STEPS OF PREPARATION

  • Pre-heat the oven to 130 degrees Celsius
  • Line a baking tray with parchment or baking paper (important, otherwise, you will have difficulty to stir the snacks)

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  • Take out a piece of Nori seaweed or snack seaweed and brush with the egg mixture. Dip the fish snack sheet (8cm x 16 cm)  in the egg and place on top of the seaweed.

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  • Wrap the sheet seaweed around the fish snack sheet. Use the scissors to cut into small pieces. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Occasionally stir the snacks. The timing is a guideline. You can continue baking until it is crispy. It is best that you take one piece out, let it cool and try the crunchiness. If it is not crunchy enough, send back to the oven.

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This is method 2 of preparation. As friends are complaining that they are not able to get hold of fish snack sheets but only fish snack stripes, you can try this method. The baking time is much shorter but is more laborious.

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  • Brush the seaweed snack with egg (for this method, you need not to use seaweed  sheets of this size, but a smaller snack package of seaweed which I do not have it with me). Dip the fish snack stripes in the egg and use the seaweed to wrap around the fish snack stripes. Bake in the oven at 130 degree Celsius for about 5 minutes. Occasionally stir the seaweed strips. I will have another update on this version if I prepare it again. Note that the timing of this version will be relatively short as compared to the first version so keep an eye when you bake these snacks.

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CONCLUSION

This post is just to add another recipe to my Chinese New Year collection. It is easy to prepare and taste great. If you are able to get this fish snack, do give it a try.

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Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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This recipe was included in Page 52 and Page 53 of the following E-book. 

For more Chinese New Year related cookies, snack and steamed cake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy Chinese New Year Recipes – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD3.50. The recipes covered various recipes from auspicious radish cake to nian gao to traditional kuih bangkit to trendy London almond cookies. Of course not forgetting both type of pineapple tarts. You can purchase by clicking the link above. You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at [email protected] and separate arrangement can be made.

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Special Round Up of Cookies And Cakes Suitable For Chinese New Year 2014

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INTRODUCTION

During Chinese New Year, most Chinese families will have visiting guests whereby cookies and cakes are served. In addition, as this is the major festival, there are praying ceremony that requires some traditional steamed cakes. This post is a special Chinese New Year post compiling all the cookies, cakes and snacks relevant to the festival.

PLEASE CLICK THE PICTURES OR THE BLUE COLOUR LINK TO GO TO INDIVIDUAL POSTS.

COOKIES

Chinese New Year Cookies21

Plum Blossom Cookies – A cream cheese cookies with strawberry jam (featured by Asian Food Channel)

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Pineapple Tarts – A type of short crust pastry enclosed tarts with pineapple jam

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Kueh Bankgit – A coconut flavoured light starch cookies

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Macadamia Russian Tea Cakes – A buttery cookies that are with mouthful of macadamia nuts

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Spicy Shrimp Floss Cookies – A savoury cookie that is spicy and full of dried shrimp floss.

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Kaasstengels – A savoury cheesy cookie made of Edam Cheese and Cheddar cheese

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Kueh Momo – A melt in the mouth buttery cookie made with only ghee and flour dusted with sugar powder

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Traditional short bread biscuits – A buttery biscuit dusted with rose petals making it stands out in a tray of cookies

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Almond sugee cookies – Made from ghee/butter together with semolina flour. Another melt in the mouth cookie.

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Melting moments – It is like Danish butter cookies made from butter and sugar.

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CAKES AND SNACKS

Chinese New Year Cake 21

Walnut Butter Cake – A fragrant and moist cake full of walnut aroma. (Featured by Asian Food Channel)

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Cream Cheese Chocolate Layer Cake – A healthier version of layered cake commonly served during Chinese New Year (Featured by Asian Food Channel)

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Bee Hive Cake or Malaysia Honey Comb Cake – A soft texture cake made using simple ingredients. Challenge is to ensure the cake have a nice pattern of airy holes.

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Butter Pound Cake – A simple modified version of traditional pound cake that make it moist and aromatic.

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Horlicks Layered Cake – Another type of layered cake that is rich, moist and dense

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Kek Serikaya Sarawak – A very rich and dense steamed cake made using mostly breakfast beverages and spreads like Horlicks, milo, condensed milk, kaya. Also called Sarawak midnight cake or Kek Belachan Sarawak. Commonly served during major festivals such as Chinese New Year.

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Seaweed Fish Fillets Snacks – A combo of fish fillet snacks and Nori Seaweeds. It is an addictive crispy snack.

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Money Bag Curry Puffs – The traditional curry puffs or epok epok in the shape of money bags specially prepared for Chinese New Year.

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Coconut Delights – A three ingredients simple snacks good for small gatherings during Chinese New Year.

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ASIAN CAKES FOR CHINESE NEW YEARS

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Steamed Nian Gao – A glutinous rice flour steamed cake. A must for most Chinese families during Chinese New Year.

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Baked Nian Gao – An alternative to steamed Nian Gao

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Steamed Rice Flour Cake – Commonly used for religious prayers and signifies prosperity.

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Steamed Sponge Cake – Another common cake for Chinese religious prayers

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For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .  

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If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

My Kueh Bangkit Broken Into Pieces When It Dropped On My Floor.. Traditional Kueh Bangkit

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UPDATED POST ON 1-1-2015

Retesting my recipe using almost 100% sago flour and i am extremely happy with the texture. Very light and fluffy. Have made some minor amendments to the recipes.

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INTRODUCTION

Making Kueh Bangkit, a type of traditional coconut milk flavoured light cookie is never in my list of cookies to be made this year. I knew all this while that this is my mother’s in laws favourite cookie. Since my wife’s sister is visiting us this week, I have decided to prepare this cookie and ask her to bring back for my mother in law.

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This is a traditional cookie. Most elders will know and like the cookie. I only prepared once since I started my baking adventures. It was at least 10 years back. I remembered stir frying the flour and the results were not that satisfactory.

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While browsing various Facebook food groups’ postings, I noted that one of the challenge of Kueh Bangkit is to make it melt in the mouth.. It is supposing to be a very light cookie and you should be able to ingest it without the use of your teeth.  Based on what I can recall, the Kueh Bangkit that I have eaten when I was a kid were rather “ugly” without beautiful shapes but very easy to eat.. But what is sold over the counters and the images I seen in the internet are overly beautiful, and in my humble opinion, this cookie should be quite hard. I have this firm belief that shape and texture is always a trade off. If you want to have a melt in the mouth texture, it basically also means that your dough must have a lot of air..having a lot of air will means your dough should be light and crumby..therefore the shape should not have fine imprints….

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As I can’t locate my old recipe, I started to search for recipes on the net. I usually started with an image search. I looked for pictures of Kueh Bangkit that have a rugged look or possibly with some cracks. I found this recipe: Mom’s Kueh Bangkit from Journal of A Nutritionist Mom. I have confident on her Kueh Bangkit from her picture, a slight crack on the top. I jotted down her ingredients but I have used what I know about baking to make my own version of Kueh Bangkit.

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In my humble opinion, making Kueh Bangkit is just like making scones. All handlings have to be light. The reason is simple – to introduce air to the dough. Therefore, a sign of crumbliness in the dough should be acceptable. Unlike scones that uses wheat flour, Kueh Bangkit uses starches – tapioca flour and I have also added sago flour, another starches commonly found in Sarawak. These flours are not good at absorbing water. The dough is likely to be wet at the bottom but dry on top. Water will sip down to the bottom. 

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The objective of introducing air to the dough will also means that your flour/starch used have to be light. Traditionally, the flour were being stir fried to achieve this effect. But I have resorted to the use  of oven to bake the flour… That is not what I “invented”, I remembered reading one recipe for Ghee cookies – Kueh Momo that requires baking of flour..One advantage of baking the flour is I need not to stand by the stove, I can let it bake and occasionally stir the flour. Sifting of flour should be “dusty”. If it is not dusty, your flour is not dry enough and feathery light…Liquid should be added bit by bit as and when you do the moulding..

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This is my own version of Kueh Bangkit and excuse me for not being humble to say that this is a very successful batch that produced the texture of Kueh Bangkit that I am looking for. When I took my images for this post, one piece dropped and it became like this….

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from : Mom’s Kueh Bangkit from Journal of A Nutritionist Mom.

Servings : 2 baking trays of at least 100 cookies (depending on your mould)

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  • 400 grams of sago flour
  • 400 grams of tapioca flour (substitutable with Sago flour)
  • 100 grams of rice flour
  • 350 grams of icing sugar
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1 packet (about 200 ml ) of coconut milk (not in picture) or fresh coconut milk
  • 6 stalks of Pandanus leaves – cleaned, dried and cut into pieces
  • 1/4 cup of additional coconut milk/water when moulding the dough

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

  • Pre-heat the oven to 150 degree Celsius and have 2 baking trays lined with baking paper.

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  • Cut the Pandanus leaves into smaller pieces. Place all flours (sago, rice and tapioca flours) in a baking tray and bake in the oven at 150 degree Celsius for 15-20 minutes. Occasionally, stir the flour. You should feel the change in lightness of the flour when you stir the flour along the baking process. As a rough guideline, when the Pandanus leaves dries up, it is considered as done. You can either use top bottom grill mode or fan mode. Fan mode is faster but slightly, slightly dustier. I use fan mode in this illustration.

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  • In a big container, sift the flour. When you sift the flour, it should be rather “dusty”. If your bowl is very big, you can consider cover half of your bowl with a clingy wrap. The flour should not only sit at the bottom of the container, the side of the container should have some accumulation of flour too. Use a spoon to press the small lumps on the sift and throw away all those that cannot go through the sift. Set aside and let it cool. As I am running out of time, I have prepared this batch of cookies when the flour is still warm. That is also logical as the longer the baked flour is exposed to the air, the more moisture they are likely to absorb back to the flour. Therefore, unlike traditionally beliefs of putting it overnight, I did mine as soon as my liquid ingredients were ready.

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  • In a big mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks and icing sugar until pale. Gradually add in the coconut milk, beat until well combined.

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  • In the big container with the baked flour, make a well in the centre. Gradually add the egg mixture. Do not add too fast as the liquid will sink to the bottom. Use your hand to lightly knead the dough until it is just combined. Don’t worry if it is not too well mixed as you can add water along the way. It is also common to find that the dough is dry on the top part. As you mould along, it may become crumbly.. That is absolutely normal for starches..

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  • Take a small portion and roll it into about 3 mm thickness on a surface lightly floured with tapioca/sago/corn/potatoes starch. You can use a rolling pin but do not press overly hard. Mould into your desired shape and put in your baking tray. I strongly advise that you do this small portion by small portion. Take a small portion, roll and mould. Your dough will get crumbly along the way as water vapour is lost and some water has sipped down to the bottom. Add water teaspoon by teaspoon (from the 1/4 cup reserved water) along the way. As long as they combined and can be moulded, that is ok. Add water too fast will force the air out of the dough..

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  • Egg wash if desired. Egg washing will help to provide a glossier surface on the top part and provide some moisture to the cookies. For egg washing, use 2 egg yolks + 2 tablespoons of water + 2 drops of oil. For darker colour, use 1 tablespoon of water instead. REMEMBER THAT YOUR EGG SOLUTION MUST BE SIFTED BEFORE THE EGG WASHING. Otherwise, you may have some dark patches of egg whites in your cookies.

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  • Bake in the preheated oven of 150 degree Celsius for 15-20 minutes or the bottom start to turn brownish. The cookies will be slightly soft while hot, when completely cooled on the rack, it should be crispy. As this is a very light cookie, it will become soft in the open air very fast as water vapours start to absorb back. As soon as it is cooled, store in an air tight container. In the event that it become soft even before you put in the container, continue putting into the container, without the lid closed, put it in the refrigerator. The refrigerator will help to draw the moisture out of the cookies and make it crispy again. Serving is best in an air tight container during Chinese New Year.

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CONCLUSION

This is a long winded post and should be one of my very last post on Chinese New Year cookies series.

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Again, I am a firm believer of shape versus texture concept.. A rugged, light Kueh Bangkit will give you a melt in the mouth texture. Forgive me again that I have my own definition of melt in the mouth… put in your mouth and bite once and it should just broken into pieces, two bites is not melt in the mouth and using tongue to break your cookies is the ideal…Average weight of my cookie is 6 grams per cookie.

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Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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  • For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 28 July 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts.  

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