Kueh Bangkit/Kuih Bangkit( Chinese New Year Cookies)

This is a video of making kueh bangkit.

During Chinese New Year, Kueh Bangkit is a must-have cookie for many families and it has become our family favourite ever since I started making them a few years ago.

Kueh Bangkit is a fragrant and tasty cookie that simply melts in the mouth and leaves a creamy and coconuty taste that most people cannot resist. 

To dough mix should not be too wet or dry. If it is too wet, the cookie will expand until the pattern disappears. If it is too dry, the cookie will be very hard.

Try to get very fresh tapioca flour. Do check the manufacturing date before buying it. Put the whole packet of 500g tapioca flour with pandan leaves in a wok and dry-fry over low heat until the pandan leaves turn dry and the moisture disappear and it becomes light and fluffy.  This takes about 15 - 20 minutes.  Let the flour totally cool to room temperature before sieving it (you will be left with less than 500g after sieving). Pack sieved fried flour into a plastic bag and store it in the fridge until needed.

Get 1 whole grated coconut without the brown coloured layer (1 coconut is able to squeeze out about 150-200ml coconut milk) and extract the milk.  Put all the milk that you have extracted into a pot with 2 tbsp of sugar, salt and some pandan leaves and bring it to a simmer over low heat ( do not over boil it, it will curd if over boiled ) until all the sugar and salt are dissolved and fragrance of the pandan leaves fuse into the coconut milk and let it cool before using it.

Ingredients for making kueh bangkit:

• 350g fried tapioca flour ( Dry-fry the whole packet of 500g, the amount will reduce after the moisture disappear, you might need extra flour for adjustment)
• 5 pieces of pandan leaves
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 large egg yolks
• 120g fine granulated sugar (2 tbsp to put into the coconut milk)
• 150ml of thick coconut milk( with all the milk you extracted from 1 whole fresh coconut, add 2 tbsp of sugar, salt and pandan leaves, bring to low simmer) 

Cream egg yolk and sugar

add tapioca flour alternately with the coconut milk to the egg mixture

adding coconut milk 

the final dough is firm and not sticky

 baking tray lined with baking paper

Method:

1. Wash the pandan leaves. Wipe them dry and cut into 3cm pieces
2. Over low heat, dry-fry the tapioca flour in the wok together with the pandan leaves till it is very light and fluffy. It takes about 15mins, let it totally cool down to room temperature and sieve. Packed sieved fried flour into a plastic bag and store it in the fridge until needed.
3. Over low heat, boil coconut milk with some pandan leaves and 2 tbsp of sugar ( taken from the amount 120g fine granulated sugar) and salt. Leave to cool before use.
4. Beat egg yolks and the balance sugar till light lemony and creamy. Add sugar slowly so as to ensure all the sugar dissolve easily.  
5. However if the sugar does not dissolve properly, you can add some coconut milk first before you add the flour (see step 6 below).
6. Add flour and coconut milk, alternately, to the egg mixture slowly. The last addition of the flour should be done bit by bit to get a good firm dough. The dough should not be too wet or dry.  If it is too wet, the cookie will expand until the pattern disappears. If it is too dry, the cookie will be very hard.
7. Roll dough to 1/2 cm thick and cut out cookie with the cookie cutter.  Lay them on the baking tray lined with baking paper (to prevent cookies from sticking onto the tray after it is baked). 
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 160°C for about 15 mins.  I prefer the kueh bangkit to be a little over baked so that it turns a little brown at the sides.  This makes it more fragrant. 

This recipe can made 2 containers 

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover 

My previous post on Kueh Bangkit is here

My Aunty's Pineapple Tart Recipe(CNY Cookies)

Ingredients:

• 600g plain flour
• 375g golden churn butter
• 5 egg yolks and 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• for glazing 1 egg yolk+ 1 tsp water mix well

Homemade pineapple jam recipe

Method:

1. Place everything in a mixing bowl and mix evenly using a paddle attachment on the lowest speed possible.
2. Use 12g of dough and 8g of homemade pineapple jam, form it into a small ball. Put on the baking tray lined with baking paper.
3. Brush tarts with egg wash before baking in preheated oven at 160°C for 6 minutes first, take out and  brush egg wash again.
4. Continue baking for another 20 minutes or until tarts  are golden brown.
5. Let to cool completely and keep in an air-tight container.

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover 

Klassiske Vaniljekranse (Danish Butter Cookies)

My cookies look under-baked when compared with the other bloggers' photos. sigh...I was afraid of over-baking them but now...:(,may be I should double bake them again. Aiya..ya...:(. I was using temperature at 190°C and baked for 8 minutes. Next time I should add 1-2 minutes to ensure they are not under baked again.

Danish Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 egg (60g)
• 200g butter( I used SCS120g + Golden Churn 80g)
• 130g icing sugar
• 320g Plain flour
• 2 tbsp/30g of vanilla paste

Method:

1. Place everything in a mixing bowl and mix evenly using a paddle attachment on the lowest speed possible.
2. Pipe wreaths onto greased cookie sheet or baking tray using an open star tip.
3. Bake in a preheated oven at 190°C for 9-10 minutes.
4. Leave to cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet.Transfer cookies into airtight container after cookies are at room temperature.

Source of the recipes are from here and here.

Homemade Kueh Bolu/ Kuih Bahulu(Chinese New Year Cookies)

                             

This is the latest video for making kueh bolu 

(recipe source: adapted from Aunty Yochana with minor changes)
Ingredients:
Egg and sugar ratio is 1:1 part
320g sugar
320g of egg ( about 6 eggs)
225g of plain flour(dry-fry over low heat for 15mins)

Sieved fried flour 

(1) Dry-fry flour with pandan leaf(optional) over low heat till light. Leave to cool.

(2) Brush mould with oil and heat it in a preheated oven at 200°C till hot.

(3) Beat eggs (at room temp)and sugar together for about 30 mins, till thick and the color become light yellow. Please refer to my latest video.

(4) Mix 35g of fried flour with 110g. of egg mixture. Put the mixture into the pastry bag and pipe into the oiled mould. Bake for 10 minutes or until it is done. Unmould kueh bolu and let it cool.
(5) Repeat step 4 till mixture finishes.

(6) Store in an airtight container.

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover 

The old video showing homemade kueh bolu

Homemade Pineapple Jam For CNY Cookie Pineapple Tart

Homemade Pineapple Jam For CNY Cookie Pineapple Tart

 

Ingredients:
8 pineapples, grated
1 clove
1 cinnamon stick
1 kg sugar

Firstly, peel, grate and remove eyes of all 8 pineapples. Retain the juice (where all the flavor of the pineapples are) and cook over high heat. I used two pots.
Try not stir too often; it will splatter and may burn you. Allow the juice to be reduced before adding the sugar.
!!! Don't add the sugar too early, otherwise there will be more splattering !!!
Once it has been reduced to ~ 20%, add 1000g of sugar. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. When it has become pasty and like a jam, u can stir more often(it won't splatter so much).

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Coffee Macarons and Salted caramel Filling( with no feet)

Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons

These chocolate and raspberry macarons were made a long time ago. I didn't make macarons for a long time... it should be more than a year already. As I have very little experience of making macarons, making it perfect is really hard. The macarons I made today was unsuccessful it has no feet and I have no clue why it happened......:(. I did it the same way just like the older patch.  The only reason I can think off was the drying process, may be the macaron was not dry properly before baking, or it could be the baking temperature .....etc. Anyway, I need more practice and I'll make this post for future reference.

The failed coffee macarons with salted caramel filling below have no feet, but still tastes delicious :D.

The coffee macarons and salted caramel filling recipes. I referred to Sue's blogs.

Coffee macarons shell ingredients

• 125 g pure icing sugar
• 125 g almond meal (almond flour or ground almond)
• 100 g egg whites (i separated 24 -48 hours in advance and keep in the fridge.)
• 125 g caster sugar (super fine sugar)
• 30 ml water (2 tablespoons)
• 7 g intant coffee( ground)

                                                                         Pic 1&2

                                                           Pic 3&4

Making macaroons shell
Method:

• Sift almond meal and icing sugar together through fine sieve and set aside.
• Divide egg whites into two equal portions (50 g each portion).  Pour the first portion of egg white (50 g)and coffee into the almond meal/icing sugar mixture (pic 1).  Mix and combine well, just set it aside (pic 4).
• Put the water and caster sugar in a heavy-base saucepan over medium-high heat(pic 2). When the syrup start to boil. Place the rest of egg white (50 g) into a mixing bowl, using the whip attachment, whip egg white to the soft peak. When the syrup reaches 118°C (on a thermometer), take if off the heat and let it cool down to 115°C.
• While the mixer is still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Be careful not to pour syrup onto the whip as it might spatter (pic 3).
• Continue mixing until the meringue cool down to slightly above body temperature (50°C) or when the side of the mixing bowl is warm to touch. The whipped egg white would be stiff and glossy (pic 5).

                                                          Pic 5 &6

                                                           Pic 7&8

• Mix a third of whipped egg white into the almond meal mixture and combine them well( pic 6). At this step, you can work the mixture very vigorously to blend the egg white with almond meal mixture. Fold the rest of whipped egg white into the mixture(pic 7) and mix well, yet gently, until the batter is smooth(pic 8). The batter will be thick. It resembles a very thick cake batter, or as many web sites describe it as a magma-like consistency ( it means the thick batter would flow slowly like a magma).

Pic 9&10

Pic 11&12

• Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm plain tip (pic 9). Pipe the staggering rows of 1-inch rounds onto baking papers or baking sheets (pic 10).
•  Let the piped shells stand at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes to let the crust forms. This depends on the room temperature and humidity. When the piped shells are dry to touch without it sticking to your fingers. They are good to go into the oven.
• Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-force or convection oven, increase the temperature by 20°C if you’re using conventional oven) for at least 15 minutes. Just before baking, turn the temperature down to 150°C and bake the macarons for 15 minutes.
• Lift the baking papers/sheets off the baking tray to the cooling rack and let it completely cool down before removing macarons (it is easier to remove cool macarons off the sheet. They are also less likely to stick to the paper).

• Sandwich cool macarons shell with chilled salted caramel.
• Store macarons in airtight container in the fridge. Macaron will taste better after it is chilled overnight.

Salted caramel filling recipe:

Salted caramel ingredients:

Pic 13&14



Pic 15&16
• 100 g caster sugar
• 165 g thickened cream (minimum 35% fat content)( I used milk and added 30g of butter)
• 15 g salted butter
• 70 g soften salted butter

Making salted caramel filling

• This caramel is done using dry-caramel method where sugar are melted on the medium high heat without any water (pic 14).
• Add 30 g of caster sugar to a heavy-based small saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the sugar melt and shake the pan every now and then to help sugar to melt. When the sugar is 
• melted (pic 15), put another 35 g of sugar into the pan and let it melt. Repeat with the rest of sugar. 
• Leave the sugar caramelised until it turns dark amber(pic 16). Remove the pan from the heat and add 15 g of butter. 
• Add warm thickened cream to the sugar mixture(pic 17). Be careful as the mixture might spatter. Quickly shake the pan to help blending cream and caramelized sugar.
• Put the saucepan back to medium-heat and let it boil until it reaches 108°C(pic 18 &19).
• Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a bowl (pic 20). Cover the mixture surface with cling wrap to prevent the skin forming. Set aside to cool down and won't melt butter in the next stage.

                                                                                                   

   Pic 17&18    

Pic 19&20

• When the sugar mixture is cool, beat butter on medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy (approx. 8 – 10 minutes). Mix the sugar mixture into the butter in two batches.
• Chill the mixture until ready to use to fill macarons.

Macaron with no feet

Chocolate & raspberry macarons

Making Almond Biscotti

I decided to make biscotti today. Biscotti has a crunchy texture, and it need to be baked twice in the oven. It goes nicely with a cup of hot coffee or tea.


Rolling the sticky dough into a logs





Slicing the biscotti after the first baked, need to bake again after cutting


The Biscotti are ready to serve with a cup hot tea or coffee








Almond Biscotti

Ingredients
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
21/2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp butter, softened
21/2 eggs beaten with 1 Tbsp vanilla extract ( the other 1/2 egg use for glazing )
2 cups baked whole almonds (skins still on)
Egg wash ( 1/2 egg mixed with a little water )

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.

Mix the sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, soft butter, and baked almonds in a large bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla extract in a small bowl until well blended. Add egg mixture slowly to the flour mixture until it forms into a sticky dough. You can mix them either with an electric mixer or by hand.

Take the sticky dough out and divide it into 3 pieces, rolling each into a log, flattened just a bit, place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with egg wash.

Bake in a preheated 175 degree C oven until firm, but not too hard. Mine took about 30 minutes to bake.

Remove from oven and let rest for several minutes, slice on the diagonal with a bread knife.

Place slices onto the baking sheets; place in the still warm oven with the temperature off and the oven door closed for 30-60 minutes. The longer it stays in the oven, the harder it will become. Remove from oven and cool completely before storing in an air-tight container. Stored properly, biscotti can last up to a month.

Cornflake Cookies

Cornflake cookie is getting more and more popular during Chinese New Year. I started to make this cookies only 3 years ago, and now this is my favourites cookie of all time.

Recipe of Cornflake cookie

Ingredients

336g of butter
180g of caster sugar
3/4 tsp of salt
3 egg yolks
11/2 tsp of vanilla extract
450g of top flour
3/4 tsp of baking powder
3/8 tsp of baking soda
150g of cornflakes crushed them untill it becomes half amount.
3 tbsp coconut flake


Method

Sift top flour, baking powder and baking soda together. Beat butter, sugar and salt till light and creamy. Add in the egg yolk one at a time till well combine. Add in vanilla extract and mix well before folding in the flour mixture, cornflake and coconut flake. Mix well till you get a soft dough.

Roll out into a 1/2cm thick dough, and cut out pattern using a cutters.

You can also shape dough into small balls.

Bake in oven at 165C for about 15 mins or till golden brown.

Kueh Bangkit (edited @ 2013)

 The latest video of making kueh bangkit @2013 CNY.
 My latest post on kueh bangkit is here

Making Kueh Bangkit is troublesome... you know why? That is because you need to fry the tapioca flour till light and fluffy, and it makes that whole house very powdery..need to do lot of cleaning up.

My daughter likes kueh bangkit very much!!! Haha...so I make this cookie specially for her.

Here is the Kueh Bangkit Recipes

Try to get very fresh tapioca flour. Please check the manufacturing date.
Get 1 whole grated coconut without the brown colour layer. 1 coconut can extract out about 150-200ml coconut milk.

Ingredients,

350g tapioca flour
5 pieces of pandan leaves
1 tsp of salt
2 large egg yolks
120g fine granulated sugar (2 tbsp to put into the coconut milk)
150ml of thick coconut milk
1 tbsp of butter (optional)Put in if you like the cookie to be buttery

Method

Wash the pandan leaves. Wipe them dry and cut into 3cm pieces

Use low heat fry the tapioca flour in the wok together with the pandan leaves till it is very light and fluffy. It takes about 15mins

Use low heat boil coconut milk, some pandan leaves with 2 tbsp of sugar( taken from the amount 120g fine granulated sugar)and salt. Leave to cool before use.

Beat egg yolks and the balance sugar till pale and creamy. Add the butter if you like the buttery smell.

Alternately add flour and coconut milk to the egg mixture slowly. The last addition of the flour should be done bit by bit to get a good firm dough. The dough should not be too wet or dry.

If it is too wet. The cookie will expand till the pattern disappear. If it is too dry the will be very hard.

Roll dough to 1/2 cm thick cut out cookie with the cookie cutter.Lay on the tray with baking paper. Baking at 160C for about 15 mins.

The old video of making kueh bangkit.