January 18, 2012

Making kuih kapit


When I was in my teens and early adulthood, every year without fail, we will make kuih kapit aka love letters for Chinese New Year.  Somehow when the kids came along and we got busier and busier with other commitments, we stopped making this the last few years.

Few weeks ago, mum casually asked if we wanted to make kuih kapit this year, so elder sis and I jumped at the suggestion, for memories’ sake J  And so, we embarked on this last Sunday.  We started firing up the stove, which was fabricated 15-20 years ago, at about 10.30am.


Mum preparing the canisters for storing kuih kapit

Unfortunately, we had a hard time doing so, possibly because we used old charcoal, and mum had forgotten to sun dry them prior to use.  After 1.5 hours of failing to ignite the fire, I decided to drive out to buy some “fresh” charcoal.  When I got back 10-15mins later, mum and sis had finally managed to get the charcoal burning and had successfully made several pieces.


Anyway, we worked for about four hours and produced these.

 

Along the way, some slightly burnt ones went into their tum tum.  Mum boiled some herbal tea the next day to ensure the girls don’t get too heaty.


6 comments:

Small Kucing said...

next year gimme the slighly burnt one...i love those hahaha...I remembered doing this when i was young. Haiz...but when moving house i think mom given away the Kuih Kapit Kiap. It's very hard to find good ones. Old ones have the best quality

chinnee said...

Should do this every year if possible to continue to *fun* and tradition of preparing for CNY. Actually its good for the kids to see so this would not be forgotten when they grow up later.

WK Liew said...

Really nice to be making them again, well at least your 2 gals really enjoyed eating the fresh love letters straight from the oven!!!

Now let's start planning for next year CNY ;)

Unknown said...

Wow, yummy! So much hard work for that little delicacy! Must enjoy each crunch! Gong xi fa cai you to you and your family... see you around, hopefully... drop by for visit lar... got 15 days mah

A Mom's Diary said...

small kucing - ok ok, if we do this again next year, I will remember you :-) It's so important to have good "kiap", otherwise it's extremely frustrating to have the dough sticking to it.

Chin Nee - Yiu Yiu was very excited when she heard that we would be making kuih kapit. But on the day itself, she was busy playing at the neighbour's house. And when she popped home once in a while, she'd exclaimed incredulously, "Still not finished yet?" Kids!

WK - it was fun making them, but I didn't fancy the ashes flying into my house. Had to mop the floor several times to get rid of the "ashy" feel on my feet.

Irene - yeah man, but it's worth the effort. Must make sure I get mum to pen down her recipe for future. Okie, will try to drop by to pai nian.

Happy walker said...

nice "kuih"~~ XD

Regards,
http://www.lonelyreload.com (A Growing Teenager Diary) ..