One of my favourite Chinese New Year snacks. I have no idea why they are called love letters because the direct translation from Mandarin should be egg rolls. Maybe people in the past used to roll up love letters in these biscuits. Anyhow, to make these biscuits, you will either need the old school charcoal machine or the electric press (which looks like a sandwich press but specially made for love letters). I found making love letters extremely therapeutic. Simply because it is repetitive and you can watch television while making it. However, it is extremely time consuming because it takes at least 1 min to make 2 love letters and you can’t rush it unless you have more than one machine. I got the recipe from my uncle and in the past, they used to use their hands to roll the biscuits and it is a painful process because the biscuit is really hot. To save his blistering hands, he fashioned a stick with a slit in the middle to roll up the love …

Chinese new year is not complete with pineapple tarts. This was my first time making pineapple tarts because it’s impossible to find them in Australia. Pineapple tarts are one of the most expensive new year goodies after making them on my own, I finally understood why. Making these tarts is seriously a lot of work and my back was aching after that. To make pineapple tarts, first you need to prepare the jam. Cooking the jam takes two hours and requires a lot of patience. After that you need to make the cookie dough. I made the jam and cookie dough at the same time and then placed it in the fridge to rest overnight. The next day, I spent about 1.5hr rolling the cookie dough out. You will probably spend about 4hr in total preparing the jam, cookie dough and making the tarts. To me, the perfect pineapple tart is one with a crumbly, melting texture to it and the jam must not be too sweet. So the trick to a crumbly, melty texture …

This is the year of the dog and since I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, I’ve decided to be a little creative and make something different. I wanted an Asian twist to my usual cookie dough recipe to be included into my Chinese New Year menu so I’ve decided to add roasted black sesame powder. It is relatively easy to make these cookies but as I was rolling out the cookie dough, I’ve realised that the recipe could be simplified by using cashew nut halves for the ears instead of having a separate cookie dough – that would save half the time. Anyhow it is always fun trying out new things. After the cookies were baked, I asked my friends what does it look like. One said dog and the other two said koala. Seriously koala? When I looked at it closely, those with shorter ears do look like koalas whereas those with longer ears looked like dogs. Just happened that I made these cookies a day before Australia Day so it …

Less than three weeks to Chinese New Year and I’m prepping my cookie menu. This time round I’ll be baking all my cookies in Australia then taking them back to Singapore, just in time for Chinese New Year. Today I’ve decided to make pandan melting moment cookies. It is similar to kueh bangkit which is melt in your mouth tapioca cookies. To make these melting moment cookies, you will require potato starch. If you can’t find potato starch, you can use corn starch instead but potato starch makes the texture smoother. This recipe also doesn’t require egg, it is a simple creaming method that binds all the ingredients together. Nutrition per cookie (one batch makes 50) Ingredients 125g unsalted butter (room temperature) 40g icing sugar 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp pandan essence 125g potato starch 80g cake flour 20g desiccated coconut Directions Preparation time: 10min Baking time: 15-20min or when the cookie turns golden brown Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper In a mixing bowl, beat butter, …