There is nothing more associated with the Chinese New Year celebration in Southeast Asian countries than kueh bangkit or kueh bang ket in the Hokkien dialect. These pretty cookies have soft textures and can be made in various shapes and sizes, often round, rectangular and in form of flowers and all may be lightly scented with coconut or pandan. It is hard, quite crispy and tender at the same time and the small amount of powder sugar enhances the taste very much.
As much as I love biting into these cookies, I did not know that those cookies had a social and historical significance as well. Read more as we feature the history of kueh bangkit, a tasty treat with heartfelt origins.
The Meaning Behind the Name
The word ‘bangkit’ used in Malay means get up or literally in the context of baking, get big, get puffed up as is the nature of these cookies. Indeed, the secret of their tenderness or soft texture to the extent that they disintegrate when confronted with hot oil or even when baked is traced from the addition of baking powder or eggs to the dough before deep frying or oven baking.
The Chinese also use an equally apt name for kueh bangkit — tik kueh, which means ‘uplift cake.’ This sees the celebrative spirit of the new year, and the hope or prayer that in the next year, each person will taste success.
A Cookie Rooted in Tradition
The recipe of kueh bangkit, however, has its say that it originated from Fujian province of China similar to most of the Peranakan or Nonya sweets. These cookies could have been originally imported to Southeast Asia by early Chinese immigrants a couple of centuries ago, or they could have developed from other kinds of similar cookies right here.
What we can be sure of is that making of bangkit kueh has been made into a tradition being generations from the early days up until the present. In the past where many home based businesses could be seen, these cookies would be prepared in large quantities for the Chinese New Year because the ethnic community bought so many. Another tradition associated with CNY is also to exchange what is called kueh bangkit and these are specially made intricate pastries.
Labors of Love, the stories that symbolizing beginnings of love.
Layer of satin finish, delicate and uniform cookie exteriors though hides a lot of preparation processes within them. Unlike today’s commercial producers who begin with packaged glutinous rice flour that has been roasted and grounded, the home based producers begin right from roasting the glutinous rice and grinding it into powder and mixing it with coconut milk or eggs to from the dough. The detailed procedure makes it clear why they are baked especially once in a year.
Apart from being tasty, kueh bangkit are also considered to represent the sweetness for the coming new year. Round and new years symbolize a prosperous year while flaky textures that dissolve in mouth are equated to easy come because they are easy to dissolve in the mouth. For these reasons, they are given as presents during CNY home visits or when people decide to open house their home to guests.
Contemporary Twist Demographic Changes
Every kind of stove, ranging from the floor model wood-fire stove that was customary in earlier days to the new-fangled electric oven have been matched by kueh bangkit-making as well. Rice flour was replaced with wheat flour at some point and the cookies were too shaped differently besides introducing new flavours in the decades that followed.
Apart from the traditional round and flower shapes the modern kueh bangkit are made in ingot, pineapple and Chinese zodiac shapes to reflect CNY emblemata. Flavours that are common to the region are gula melaka (palm sugar) or pandan with more creativity coming up with such as chocolate, green tea, salted egg yolk or even the blue pea flower!
Many of Singapore and Malaysian societies today have become cosmopolitan, and the parade of kueh bangkit signify this inherent sociological reality. The things done in a traditional and conventional manner as well as the culture, therefore, change with time. However as these exciting flavours as originally coconute or pandan kueh bangkit bring back sweet memories of earlier days CNY for the elder, the soul is not lost.
Modernization and the Continuity of Cultural Pratices
This heritage cookie as a primary part of Lunar New Year celebrations for generations, it remains a popular choice every Lunar New Year despite dynamic taste buds as well as various snacking options available in the market. Today’s even younger generations, those who grew up with computers and personal computers still remember these cookies fondly as the sweetness auguring forthcoming festivities.
And where tradition remains rather vibrant, some households still prepare kueh bangkit from scratch during the CNY period. It is important that there are home baked goodies to distribute but the hands on also allows for more quality time between generations as family members share recipes and skills.
While making your own kueh bangkit is a lot of fun, and also undoubtedly a bit of a labor of love, it can be a long process. With the current lifestyle gains the ability to make them and decorate them gets more and more demanding hence young adults prefer to buy the store bought ones for gifting purposes even though they may not be as creative as homemade ones. But, sales statistic show that there remains a constant market for artisanal kueh bangkit from old school bakery stores and home based bakers. The appearance of this heritage cookie may remain to be a constant as we skip through future Lunar New Years!
