We love angkoo kuih so much that I have made it ever so often. I did not buy them from the market as I did not like the colouring that went into the dough. The bought ones were also too sweet for our palate. The kuih were also priced too exorbitantly. When I made them I use only natural ingredients like purple or orange sweet potato or beetroot for the colour. I also filled the dough with generous amount of fillings while controlling the sweetness. I can also decide on the sizes and patterns of the kuih. Lastly, I am able to make them at half the cost of those sold. Thus, my family was able to enjoy the kuih to their hearts' content as I was able to make many pieces at low costs.
I have been making angkoo kuih filled with mung bean paste. So I decided to make them with coconut fillings instead. Both are delicious in their own ways.
Ingredients:
For the base:
- banana leaves
- some cooking oil
- 150 g fresh coconut flakes
- 100 g gula Melaka
- 50 g dark brown sugar
- 2 - 3 pandan leaves
- 80 g water
- 10 g corn flour + 2 tbsp water to form a solution
- 240 g orange sweet potatoes
- 200 g glutinous rice flour
- 10 g rice flour
- 25 g corn oil
- 80 g hot water
Method:
For the base:
- Cut the banana leaves according to the size of your mould.
- Wash the cut banana leaves and wipe them dry.
- Grease the banana leaves with cooking oil so that the dough doesn't stick onto the leaves.
For the fillings:
- Add the gula Melaka, dark brown sugar, pandan leaves and water into a saucepan.
- Boil the water till the gula Melaka and dark brown sugar melt and the syrup is aromatic.
- Sieve the syrup into a non-stick pan.
- Let it cool down a bit before adding the corn flour solution to it. Stir so that they are mixed together.
- Add the fresh coconut flakes to the syrup.
- Stir the coconut flakes till they absorb the syrup and slowly cook them till they are dry and can be formed into balls.
- Let the coconut flakes cool down.
- Then form them into balls. (According to my mould, the balls should weigh 16 g to fit into the dough for the mould.)
- Arrange them on a plate and set the plate aside.
- Wash and cut the sweet potatoes.
- Place them into a metal plate.
- Bring water to boil in a steamer.
- Once the water has boiled, place the metal plate of sweet potatoes into the steamer.
- Steam until the sweet potatoes are soft.
- Remove the sweet potatoes from the steamer and mash them while they are hot.
- Put the glutinous rice flour and the rice flour into a mixing bowl.
- Put the mashed sweet potatoes into the mixing bowl. Use a spoon and mix the sweet potatoes and the flours until well combined.
- Add in the oil. Mix well.
- Add in hot water, bit by bit, until they can be shaped into balls. To fit my mould, the weight of my dough ball should be 32 g. So, you have to experiment to get the weight which can fit into (with the filling wrapped inside) the mould nicely.
Assembly:
- Take a piece of dough ball, flatten it and put the filling onto it. Slowly bring the flattened dough to cover the filling and roll it back into a ball.
- Dust the mould with glutinous flour.
- Place the ball into the mould and press it down to cover the mould nicely. If there is any dough higher than the mould, it means that the dough is too big. So, you have to adjust accordingly.
- Knock the wooden block of the mould on a table. The dough will easily drop off if you have dusted the mould well.
- Place the moulded dough on the greased banana leave.
- Repeat this until all the dough balls and filling balls are finished.
- Bring the water in the steamer to boil.
- Once it has boiled, place all the moulded dough onto the steamer rack.
- Steam the moulded dough over high heat for 4 minutes. Open the steamer cover, quickly brush the dough with some cooking oil. Once completed, cover the steamer and continue to steam the dough at high heat for another 4 minutes. This process will help to maintain the design of the kuih.
- Remove the kuih from steamer and let them cool down completely.
- Remove the kuih from the banana leaves and place them onto fresh ones.
- The angkoo kuih are ready to be served.