Kueh Bangket
Sago (or Tapioca) Flour Cookies
These dainty, flower-shaped biscuits melt in your mouth. Kueh bangket, like
kueh koya(
page 110),
kueh belanda and kueh bolu (
page 113), are very traditional Nonya biscuits
served during Chinese New Year. Like
kueh belanda, which literally translates to ‘Holland
cake’,
kueh bangket has some relation to the Dutch. The word
‘bangket’ is close to the
Dutch word for biscuit—
‘banket’. The test for quality lies in how firm and pretty it can look
while it still melts smoothly in your mouth. More than anything, it should not break up into
powdery pieces. It is important to dry-fry the flour and let it cool completely. Therefore,
you might want to do this a few days ahead of time. The dough may seem too crumbly,
especially if the climate is dry. In that case, you may want to add an additional egg yolk.
I recall my mother’s bangket to have a lovely vanilla flavour although fussy
connoisseurs might insist that there should be some pandan flavour as well. If you wish,
you could add knotted pandan leaves when boiling the coconut milk.
makes 50 to 60 biscuits
450 g or 1 pound sago or tapioca flour
6 pandan leaves, tie 3 leaves each
into a knot
½ cup thick coconut milk*
170 g or 6 ounces castor sugar
2 egg yolks (3, if climate is dry)
1 egg white
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
(optional, for added crispness)
* Some swear by fresh coconut milk ,
particularly for its flavour which seems fresher
and less overpowering than canned milk.
1. Fry the flour and one of the knotted pandan leaves over
low heat until it is light and fluffy. Keep stirring to prevent
the flour from burning at the bottom. Cool completely.
2. Gently boil the thick coconut milk with the other
knot of pandan leaves. Let this cool and discard the
pandan leaves.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
4. Beat the castor sugar, egg yolks and egg white until
the castor sugar dissolves. Add the vanilla essence,
bicarbonate of soda (if using) and the boiled coconut milk.
Fold in the flour a little at a time, just enough for you to
obtain a dough that can be pliable. Remove from the bowl
and knead into a firm ball of dough. Cover the dough with
a damp cloth, taking small portions of the dough each time
for rolling and leaving the rest covered.
5. Reserve the remaining flour for dusting on the table
surface and the cookie cutters.
6. Pinch some dough and roll flat into a thickness of
0.5 cm or ¼ inch. Press down a kueh bangket cutter to
cut the cookies. Use a crimper to pinch the edges of each
cookie to give it a delicate design. Repeat until all the
dough has been used up.
7. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Let the biscuits
cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
My mother’s original recipe, as with those of her peers,
called for sago flour. These days, it is rather difficult to find sago flour.
It is widely acknowledged that tapioca flour is a fine substitute.
I personally tend to disagree. However, in scouring around, I could only
locate the Sunflower brand of sago flour at NTUC supermarket, leaving
me to settle for tapioca flour for the most part.
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