Cook: Melt in the mouth Kuih Bangkit

Kuih Bangkit has always been one of my favourite cookies during Chinese New Year. Love how it melts in my mouth with a hint of coconut fragrance. Oh... yummy!!!

My melt in the mouth Kuih Bangkit

I find it hard to get a good recipe for Kuih Bangkit and I kinda give up four years ago when the batch that I made turns out to be hard. It tasted ok but the texture is a total disaster. So for the past few years I did not make any Kuih Bangkit for Chinese New Year because as many of you know, it is very tedious to make Kuih Bangkit and when it turns out badly, it just kinda spoil the mood...

I don't know what got into me this year but after making two batches of peanut cookies, I decided to give Kuih Bangkit another chance. Popped into Phoon Huat to get some baking supplies and off I go to try out another Kuih Bangkit recipe...

After 4 hours in kitchen, I finally found a successful recipe!!!! But I must say it is hard work and super tiring...from baking the flour to moulding the cookies which takes ages as the dough really dries up fast so have to keep adding coconut milk/water.

All in all, I am satisfied with my batch but I am not sure if I would like to do another batch this year... maybe next year :p 

But this recipe is definitely a keeper hence sharing it here with all :)

INGREDIENTS:
(Makes 4 small red bottles of cookies- about 200 pieces)

1. 400g of sago flour
2. 400g of tapioca flour
3. 100g of rice flour

4. 8 pandan leaves (washed, dried and tear into small pieces)5. 350g of icing sugar
6. 200ml of coconut milk
7. 6 egg yolks 

METHODS:

1. Place the sago flour, tapioca flour, rice flour and pandan leaves onto a baking tray (as shown).

Place the three flour onto the baking tray.

2. Preheat oven to 150 degree Celcius and turn on the oven fan function , place the tray into the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. I would stir the flour every 5-10 minutes.

3. Once the pandan leaves dries up and the flour appear to the more fluffy and light, it is done. 

Light and fluffy

4. Remove the tray from oven. Then remove the pandan leaves and sieve the flour. 

Sieve the flour.

5. Once that is done, leave the flour aside to let it cool down.

6. While waiting for the flour to cool down, place the icing sugar and the egg yolk into a mixing bowl. Using medium speed, blend it into a mixture. 

Icing sugar and egg yolks.

7. The mixture should appear to be pale yellow when it is done. 

Egg yolk and icing sugar mixture.

8. Next, add in the coconut milk bit by bit while mixing it in. 

Added coconut milk.

9. By now, the sieved flour should be warm and not too hot now. Add the icing sugar/egg yolk/coconut milk mixture slowly into the flour, mixing them up as you added the mixture in. The dough will be a bit crumbly and doesn't stick much.

10. Take a portion of the dough out, add some coconut milk so that the dough is workable. As long as it can be moulded, it is fine. Roll them using rolling pin and cut out using cookie cutter. The dough is quite crumbly so when push the cookie out from the cutter, have to be careful.

Ready to bake

11. Preheat the oven to 150 degree Calcium and bake for 10-15 minutes. Once the bottom turns slightly brownish, it is ready. 

12. Remove from oven, let it cool down and store in airtight container.

Ready for Chinese New Year

You may also like these for Chinese New Year:

Peanut cookies using peanut butter

Green Pea Cookies

Sugee Cookies

Baked Crab Stick

Cook: Homemade Ginger Tea (姜母茶）

The weather has been really cold lately with the rain and chill. I was in Taipei last month with a couple of my secondary school mates and came across this ginger tea which is really good to warm the stomach in the winter. I was chatting with the auntie who is selling the tea and she told me what is the ingredients inside the tea so I have decided to make some myself....

It turns out to be really good and I have made a concentrated version of it so that I can just add hot water when I want to drink it....

Homemade ginger tea

INGREDIENTS:

1. 300g of old ginger (remove the skin and cut into small chunks)

2. 20 red dates (cut into small pieces as shown)

3. 40 dried longans

4. Black sugar (to taste)

Ingredients for the ginger tea

METHODS:

1. In a pot, add the old ginger, red dates and dried longan. 

2. Then add 1L of water.

3. Bring to boil and add the black sugar.

4. Continue to simmer the soup using medium heat, adding water in between if the water level gets too low.

5. Add more sugar if needed to by tasting the tea.

6. Let the tea simmer for one and a half hour then leave it to cool.

 The ginger tea...

7. Sieve out the ingredients into a bowl.

All the goodness...

It is ready...

8. Keep the ginger tea in a bottle and place in fridge. When required, take out and add hot water. 

With my ingredients, I manage to make 650ml of concentrated ginger tea and have about 8 cups of ginger tea. I kept in fridge and drink it within 2 weeks (might be able to keep beyond two weeks but we have finished it by then). Very warm and nice for the weather. 

Enjoy...