Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Eid's biscuits

Home-baked Coconut Biscuits (Biskut Kelapa)
These "biskut kelapa" were very famous in the
80's.

Counting the days. Eid-ul- Fitri is quite near. So, it's time to head the kitchen. This year, I am baking the oldies. Those memorable biscuits of yesteryears, which I simply remember the tastes. The lingering tastes, not like modern cookies with fanciful names. It's all about simple method, simple ingredients, simple names. Names likes Coconut Biscuits (Biskut Kelapa), Suji (Sugee), Almond Cookies, Traditional Pineapple Tarts and so on... Maybe because I was born in the 70's, I have had the experiences of celebrating Aidilfitri in the 80's, 90's and the millenium. Things were different then. Friends compete on how many cookies' jars that your mum has arranged in the kitchen, (not the cookies that you have bought-but the ones that your mum has actually baked). Now, everybody is making money. Everybody is selling cookies, regardless how bad they would taste.

I personally think that baking, whether you are baking cakes, cupcakes, biscuits or cookies, pies, breads or buns, should be made with lots of love. When you love baking, you made your cookies taste nice and wonderful. When you are happy, the cakes would turn out very well. So, I am baking my biscuits with a lot of love. As I knead my dough, I remember my late maternal grandmother who married at the age of 12, and learnt by scratch all the finer things in the kitchen, but still she is the best cook I have ever met in my entire life. Ask any 12 year old girl nowadays, whether she has actually baked any cookies, she will difinitely give you a puzzled look. Simply because mummy orders everything. Yes, that is something missing in our modern millenium days, the lost of home-baked cookies. The lost of baking skills amongst girls... The lost of our identity and traditions... That is why I am longing for the "oldies" -they remind me when things were good, when money does not really matter, when the aroma of cookies show you that Eid is just around the corner. Yes, I am all for the "oldies"....

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