Cake

Happy New Year!

2/14/2010 12:29:00 PM

Peanut cookies, brought back from Malaysia by my brother. I have been inhaling these powdery peanut cookies over the last week.

Happy Chinese New year, everybody! Hope everyone's having a fun day and recovering from last night's big dinners! And without further ado, here is ours:


My mum actually did all the cooking, apart from one dish that my cousin Gina brought (see below). Our Chinese New Year reunion dinners are pretty much the same every year, and is made up of Malaysian Nyonya-type food.

This year, in addition to the usual kiam chye th'ng, loh bak and chicken curry kapitan, my dad bought roast duck and roast pork from the local Hong-Kong BBQ place. When we reheated the pork in the oven it got a little dry. Maybe next year I'll try making it myself!

Some closeups:

Close up of the Loh Bak.

Pork Shoulder cooked with fatt choy (lucky moss) - made by my cousin Gina!

For dessert, we made Thanh's amazing pandan chiffon cake with pandan fudge icing. I don't have a full-sized chiffon cake, so made it in a bundt pan.
I love how fluro green it looks!

One of the amazing things about this cake is how super-duper moist it is. We left the remainders sitting on the bench overnight (uncovered), and this morning it still tasted fluffy and moist. Great recipe, Thanh!

And here is what they look like in miniature chiffon tins:

Of course, if it's New Year, then there must be New Year biscuits. My bro brought back a copule of boxes from Malaysia - the incredible peanut cookies you see at the top of this post, and these pineapple jam biscuits here. I'm not a huge fan of the pineapple jam ones, but I am absolutely addicted to the peanut ones!
I also love the kuih bangkit - they're the flower-shaped white cookies you see in the background. These biscuits totally remind me of Penang - they are made of tapioca flour, pandan, sugar and coconut milk. They are very powdery and melt in your mouth. Behind the kuih bangkit are some cornflake cookies that my cousin brought - not traditionally Chinese New Year, but delicious and addictive!

HAPPY NEW YEAR and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

***As I type this, there is a Kylie Kwong marathon on the Lifestyle Food channel. Anyone keen to play my patented Kylie Kwong drinking game?***

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9 comments

  1. ROFL!! We were having a laugh about Kylie Kwong last night :P

    Happy New Year! Looks like a delicious feast =) I'm still too full to be bothered blogging about mine :P

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  2. Happy new year Sarah! That pandan cake looks amaaazing, I checked out the recipe, can't believe it has no green food colouring in it!

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  3. Anonymous4:28 PM

    Hi Sarah. I am a long time reader of your blog but I never said hello so after all these years - HELLO! :)

    Happy Chinese New Year to you to from one fellow Malaysian Chinese to another. Hope this year brings more cooking expeditions!

    And OMG, the thing that caught my eye was your Mother's salty veg soup!!!! I LOVE THAT STUFF. One day you will have to show us the recipe! :)

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  4. Michelle - Happy new year to you too! Lol I can barely walk with all this eating. Yet somehow it's not stopping me from eating leftovers! Hah.

    Laura - Thank-you! Oh, the pandan essence has green food colouring in it, hehehe. That's why the cake is so Wicked green!

    Anonymous - Thank-you for your comment! Happy new year to you too! Oh, we have a massive massive pot of that soup left. We'll be eating it for days hahaha.

    xox Sarah

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  5. I'm personally hoping for the peanut cookie recipe, or something akin to it in addictiveness and peanut-butteryness! Any hope? :)

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  6. Happy Chinese New Year! I'm inhaling the photo of those peanut cookies! :P

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  7. Happy New Year Sarah. I can't believe how similar our food was for the Chinese New Year dinner.

    I too went and bought roast duck. Then we made roast pork ourselves. Mum made loh bak and abalone claypot.

    Then I made the pandan cake too. And I made two, so there was some left overnight as well.

    All Asians must eat similar things for Chinese New Year I guess haha.

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  8. Hannah - Sorry, I have no idea how to make those peanut cookies! I just buy them from Chinese groceries when I get the craving. (Somehow the ones from Malaysia always taste better though).

    Rilsta - Gong Xi Fa Cai!

    Thanh - Haha, I thought only Nyonya-type Malaysian Chinese ate the same food as us, that's so cool! Maybe we are all the same ;)

    You should say it like this "At Chinese new year, we Chinese eat loh bak to represent prosperity, and green pandan cake to represent wealth. We Chinese are obsessed with freshness and depth of flavour". Then push up your big thick-rimmed glasses, LOL.

    xox Sarah

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  9. great post! left me homesick as hell but i loved it! the peanut cookies looked f king amazing! xoxo kristine.

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