Kuih Bangkit (some times also spelled Kueh Bangkit) is a crisp, white cookie popular during Chinese New Year. Kuih bangkit is considered the queen of Nyonya confectionery (the king being the kuih kapit). Nicely done kuih bangkit melts in your mouth as soon as it touches your tongue, and yet remains firm between your fingers. Sometimes if you press too hard, it will break into pieces. When you open a tin of kuih bangkit, you get the nice aroma of pandan. Nowadays kuih bangkit is often dyed pink and some times green, but the white variety is still the most common.
Kuih bangkit is made from a mixed of tapioca flour and arrowroot flour, coconut milk, egg yolks and sugar. Wooden moulds are used to shaped the cookies. The dough can also be rolled out to 4mm thickness and pressed with cookie cutters. The traditional moulds for kuih bangkit have cute animal figurines like the rabbit, chicken and tortoise as the imprints. The cookies are then baked in the oven for about 15 minutes at 175°C, or until they are slightly brown. As a final touch, red edible dye is used to dot the eyes of the rabbit and chicken cookies.
Ingredients
600g tapioca flour
1000g arrowroot flour
6 pandan leaves, cut into shorter strips
6 egg yolks
300g castor sugar or to taste
500ml thick coconut milk
Red food colouring for dotting on baked cookies
Method
Start by frying the mixture of tapioca flour, arrowroot flour and pandan leaves in a wok over a slow fire until the pandan leaves are "crispy" and the flour is 'light', which is approximately 30 minutes. Remove the crisped pandan leaves and let it cool overnight. Sieve the flour before using.
Whisk egg yolk and sugar until thick, then stir into it the coconut milk, mix them well. In a bigger container, sieve the flour ( Keep some of it for dusting the mould) and make a well in the middle. Pour in the coconut mixture bit by bit and knead the dough. You may not need to use all the coconut milk mixture. Knead the flour until it becomes a soft, pliable dough. Cover with a damp towel.
Dust your kuih bangkit mould with flour.
Take a bit of the dough and press it into the mould, and scrape off additonal dough with a butter knife.
Hit mould gently on the tabletop to dislodge the kuih from mould.
Arrange the kuih in a lightly floured baking tray, and bake at 175°C for 15 minutes. Remove and flip one cookie over with a spoon. If the bottom is light brown, then it is done. If a more crispy type is preferred (brownish edges), bake them an extra minute or two.
Cool it, and then dot the eyes with red food colouring.
Store in an air-tight jar.
Kuih Bangkit (26 December 2018)
Kuih Bangkit (26 December 2018)
Kuih Bangkit (24 January 2009)
My wife's homemade kuih bangkit for 2017 Chinese New Year (8 January 2017)
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