Beehive Cookies (蜂窝饼)

Beehive cookies, aka as honeycomb cookies is another favourite new year cookie. Home baked ones are preferred because fresh ingredients are used, and the cookies are made nearer the New Year, so they are fresher. They are also made to taste – the taste you remembered when mum made them.

Of course, that means a lot of work. Nowadays, I think most working people would rather have the weekend off to do something else than bake cookies.

Anyhow, let’s get started with the preparation of ingredients. I don't have the recipe for the cookies. I will just describe the steps to making them, simply. I am not a/the baker. Just an observer, and helper with the odds and ends.

Fresh coconut milk. Add a little water to the coconut. Bundle it in a cloth, squeeze and strain the coconut milk. It is getting difficult to find a shop that sells fresh coconuts nowadays. They now come in packets or tins.

'Pounding' the pandan leaves to get the extract. This gives the cookies the fragrant/flavour.

Eggs. Give them a good beating. Add sugar and beat them some more until all sugar is dissolved. After that, add the pandan extract, and the coconut milk and stir them again until they are nicely mixed.

Add rice flour and give the mix a good stir. Not advertising for the 'Three Elephant' brand. It just happened that that was what we use. Any brand of rice flour would do.

This is the ready mix.

Heating up the oil and the beehive mould in the wok.

When they are sufficiently heated, you can commenced on baking/frying the cookies. You dip the mould into the mix (I thought I had a picture of that, but obviously not), and then you deposit it in the oil. A steady hand is needed here. You have to make sure the mix do not go over the top of the mould or it won't drop off the mould in the oil.

When it is nicely brown, you fish them out of the oil. That is my job. So baking beehive cookies is a two person job. One to dip the mix and put it in the wok, one to fish it out when it is ready.

You put them aside to cool off.

When they are cooled, you pack them in a container. They take up quite a bit of space. So, you need to get a few large containers ready. You make a big batch each time. It is just not worth the trouble to make 'some'.

The above are just simplified steps. When baking, you will know the finer touches and adjustments needed.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BLOGGER ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank you for stopping by. Follow me if you like to read about Life, Humour, and Quotes. If you know of someone who might appreciate these posts, do share the link with them. Cheers!