by Susan Ow

Created on: April 12, 2009

Cheesecake, fruit pie, brownie, caramel, and ice cream always come into our mind when we think of desserts. One particular dessert that is little known to the Western world and can be comparable with western dessert is the traditional Malay kuih-mueh (kuih in singular). Like cheesecakes, puddings, and fudge, these desserts are delightful chewy, and offer the sweetness you crave for.

The unique of kuih-mueh is more often steamed and sometimes grilled than baked because there is no oven and electricity back then. Womenfolk in the villages used their creativity to make their desserts and snacks from natural ingredients or whatever they grew in their garden or tree. The end results are moist, rich, and chewy desserts, and for those that have sugar filling in them can be comparable to chocolate melts. While Western desserts use wheat flour, these desserts are made from natural ingredients such as tapioca floor, sweet potato flour, coconut milk, glutinous rice, pandan leave (screwpine leaves), etc.

There are more than 100 different types of Malay kuih-mueh and these recipes are originally from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. Kuih-mueh come in different shape, texture, color, and design. The six I like the most are the following:

AngKu Kuih

AngKu kuih is a type of kuih originally from Chinese. Ang means red color, and Ku means the tortoise shape, therefore, it literally means "Red Tortoise" kuih. Why it is red and tortoise shape? It is because the kuih is traditionally given out during baby's first month of celebrations, so the Red denoted prosperity and the Tortoise symbols the long life. The filling is made with sweet potatoes and green beans paste and covers by layer made with glutinous rice.

Kuih Karipap

Karipap is also known as curry puff. It is a classic example of food with Indian and Portuguese influences that has become a staple part of the Malaysian cuisine. There are a few type of karipap
such as karipap sardine, karipap ayam (chicken), and the most common one is filled with potatoes. The filling is wrapped around by dough and deep fried to golden brown color.

Kuih Lapis

While the westerner has layer cake, there is also a Malaysian style layer cake (kuih lapis). These lovely cakes are created with intricate layers of alternate color, flavor and texture. The bases of are usually made from glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour and green bean flour. Kuih lapis is an extremely laborious and time-consuming process because each layer must be laid down and steamed separately.

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