Kuih Bangkit is a crispy, airy cookie that is commonly eaten during Chinese New Year. There’s just something about these cookies that I can’t get enough of, be it its melt-in-your-mouth texture or its rich coconut flavour. I was surprised to discover that these cookies were made of only a few ingredients, namely tapioca starch, eggs, sugar, and coconut cream. Seeing as to how these could go for $25–$30 a tin outside, I was interested to see if I could recreate it at home. Since the pineapple tarts went relatively well, I thought hey, why not?
Shopping for Ingredients
Here’s a quick overview of what you need to make kuih bangkit. I only had to go out of my way to get the coconut cream, tapioca starch, and panda leaves, but these ingredients were cheap — I spent less that $5 on them.
I also had to get the mould for the kuih bangkit. You can easily find these from specialty stores such as Phoon Huat. The plastic mould retails for around $2, but if you want to stick to the traditional wooden ones, they are a bit more expensive.
Preparing the Flour
Before making the kuih bangkit, the tapioca flour needs to be dehydrated. Although traditional recipes require you frying it with pandan leaves over the stove, newer recipes have come up with a handy trick — you can use the oven instead! Simply pour the flour into a shallow pan, scatter a few cut up pandan leaves throughout, and bake for 2 hours at around 150°C. Your flour volume should have decreased by about 13–14% afterwards. Leave it to cool to room temperature. You can also prepare this a day or two in advance.
Preparing the Dough
After my flour had cooled down, it was time to prepare the dough. The recipe indicated that I was to use the thickest part of my coconut cream — the part right at the top. However, the coconut cream I bought did not have that thick layer on top, and so I just used it as is. I creamed the egg yolks and sugar until a pale yellow mixture had formed. Afterwhich, add in the tapioca starch and mix. The mixture as of now should be very dry — so far, so good for me.
The hardest part came when adding the coconut cream. You want to add in a bit at a time, lest your dough becomes too wet. The texture should still be on the dry side. However, all the recipes I’ve combed through don’t give specifics when it comes to dough texture, which made it very hard for me to ascertain when it would be enough.
Preparing the Cookies
If the dough is able to form a cohesive mass when pressed together, it should be ready. Dust the mould with a light coating of tapioca starch and shake off the excess. Press the dough into the mould and trim off the leftover dough bits with a knife. This is the fun part — to get the cookies out of the mould, you have to knock the mould. Unfortunately, because I chose to do this at night, I had multiple complaints from my parents — the knocking isn’t exactly the softest sound.
After that, bake the cookies at 150°C for 15–20 minutes. I tried both ends of the spectrum, 15 minutes produced a more soft cookie that melts in your mouth more easily, which 20 minutes produced a cookie with a lovely crisp exterior. There was more colour on the 20 minute one, too, so I opted to do the rest for 20 minutes.
Final Thoughts
Here’s a comparison picture of my favourite kuih bangkit on the right, and my homemade one on the left. While I had to admit the one from the store definitely does taste better and look better, the one I made doesn’t taste half bad. However, mine definitely lacks in texture — the store-bought one definitely had a better mouthfeel. In terms of where it went wrong, it could be the coconut cream, or it could be that the store-bought one uses sago flour instead of tapioca flour — but I’m not too sure myself, either.
Kuih Bangkit is known to be deceptively simple; it takes years of experience to get the perfect cookie. If you have time on your hands and want to try making them, I’d say by all means, go ahead. Even better if you have a family matriarch on hand willing to teach you. While the process is a little messy, it was fun. If anything, I do want to try again to perfect them! With that said, it is a time-consuming process, and it may be better to buy them just to be safe.
