I don’t like kuih bangkit. So, I don’t even know why I got myself into baking kuih bangkit in the first place. Maybe it is because I want to recapture the childhood memories when my mother and neighbour got together to bake kuih bangkit, kuih kapit, kuih pulu (bahulu) and bee hive cakes (pang siew kueh) and that evil thnee kueh or nien gao. My mother usually joint force with my neighbour and I think it is a good idea to mass produce Chinese New Year cakes.
Of all the traditional Chinese New Year cookies, I think kuih bangkit is the easiest to make. Or so I thought. I got a few versions of recipes and I decided to go with Amy Beh’s version which you can find on the net.
I fry 1 kilogramme of tapioca flour. Lucky it is mighty cheap, at only RM2.20 per kilogram so I can afford to have it fly all over my kitchen, floor, body and even face. Hehehe. I fried the flour with pandan leaves so that the tapioca smell disappears and the flour absorb the pandan leaves fragance.
I followed Amy Beh recipe for kuih bangkit to the T. I weight them, I re-read the recipe and I am very, very sure I did not make any errors on my side.
However, I got this messy batter instead of a pliable dough after I mixed all the ingredients. Arrggh…..so, I have to keep adding tapioca flour and icing sugar. I ended up with a huge blob of dough.
I bought a kuih bangkit wooden mould. One is suppose to put some dough inside, and give it a good whack to get those tiny animals shape kuih bangkit. However, it was so time consuming and I was getting exasperated by the minute because the darn dough refused to drop out. If I add too much flour to the mould, the designs won’t show.
But I have two men at home. One is my eldest son who has the practical idea of using a cookie cutter. The other is the husband who claimed to be an expert in kneading kuih bangkit till ‘it melts in the mouth’. They both told me to forget the wooden mould and use gingerbread man cookie cutter.
‘WHAT? GINGERBREAD MAN BANGKIT? WHOEVER HEARD OF GINGERBREAD MAN FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR?’
Well, I got no choice, do I? Otherwise, I would be sitting for hours whacking the tiny animals.
So, here are the gingerbread man bangkit. It tastes not bad. But here are some of my critics response :
Youngest son : Uwekk….I hate it! So much flour.
#3 son : Not bad but it is not original. (like the Boro Boro sold by the junk foods seller)
#2 son : No comment but he certainly won’t be asking me to bake more.
#1 son : Smells of tapioca….. we adjusted the dough with more icing sugar and santan and #1 son said it tastes good. (he took a few pieces for his friends to sample).
Hubby : Not bad, not bad at all. But not as good as my father’s one.
Therefore, I won’t be sharing any kuih bangkit recipe with you. You can find them online. When I meet my sister-in-law, let me see if they can still remember my father-in-law’s method of baking kuih bangkit.
This will be the first and last time I bake kuih bangkit. And I am beginning to wonder if Amy Beh bluffed me with the quantities.
……………….
prolly the recipe is not the dough dough type but more of the mould mould kind. lol.. so diluted, prolly like cup cake style le.
Lilian your kuih bangkit tak bangkit lah! I think you got the recipe for kuih tak bangkit lo!
Got butter in the recipe one meh?? Then the results would be like cookies and look yellow.Anyway your ‘dough’ looks like batter.
My suggestions…. decorate the cookies with sugar icing and use for decorations.Actually would be nice to hang on Christmas tree but that’s over liao.So hang on pussy willow la!
PS: You remember the other type of kuih bangkit that was made in the olden days? Shape like flowers with lines in the middle which were made by using a comb?
Anyway I don’t know how to make kuih bangkit. I will buy some from the biscuit seller at the market. Mass produced type that are sold by weight. Got coffee flavor,pandan flavor and ori ones too. They taste good too, very crispy and melt-in-the-mouth type.
It says in the instructions to add the coconut milk a little at the time, so maybe you don’t have to use all of it… just enough to make it into a dough maybe?
I don’t trust newspaper recipe. I trust more for those who show you how to do it in a video. At least you can replay the scene in case not sure. hehehe ….
Add thick coconut milk a little at a time. Knead well into a firm dough. Add in the butter and continue to knead until the dough is pliable.
It says in the recipe to add the coconut milk a little at a time. This is where you went wrong.
i love kuih bangkit but always chicken out in trying as i knew it would never match my grandma’s! maybe i should get a recipe from her..
Wakakaka, now Amy Beh must bangkit and find some answer for Chef Lilian.
Hi,
I was reading your comment on amy beh’s recipe on kuih bangkit. Well, I have tried several recipes from amy beh. Some were good but some were dissapointing. We just have to try it out to find out.
Valerie
oh i dont like kuih bangkit as well cos it sticks on your teeth! but i must say it was very creative to use gingerbread men cookie cutters! lol
i am cooking CNY reunion dinner for the first time this year… so no time to bake CNY cookies liao..although i originally wanted to try your pineapple cookies recipe.
hopefully i dont poison anyone!!
No worries Lilian,
I also have lots of problems baking this one. So happened I managed to bake it correctly (or so..) on the third try and it tastes great and melts in your mouth. Try this recipe
http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2006/02/kuih-bangkit.html
I’m using this recipe and did not regret it at all. To correctly ‘whack’ out your animals you need a lot of dusting on your mould and practice in knocking them out in one go.