Cookies and cake…

My missus did not bake any cakes this year – she has not been doing so for many years now, not since that year when in the midst of her Chinese New Year baking, the oven suddenly decided to call it quits and I had to rush out to buy a new one for her. Unfortunately, the cakes she baked that year turned out disastrous so she never baked again from that time onwards.

Well, this year, I went to my regular Malay kuih stall at Bandong to order their baked cakes. I bought their marble cake…

…and their poppyseed cake…

…and also their choco cake…

They were all very nice, not really sweet and very soft and moist unlike some cakes that we get from the bakeries here and each of them was only RM18.00 for a 12-inch square – I thought that was very cheap!

I was not all that keen on their very expensive steamed kek lapis Sarawak especially those colourful ones with all the artificial colouring used in the making. I only bought half a  kek belacan (RM50.00)…

…thus named because of the resemblance.  This is a very rich cake with 10 eggs, condensed milk, kaya, cocoa, Horlicks, Milo and everything else. It is so rich that even before I removed the cling film, I could detect the lovely fragrance.

I also bought another steamed cake – the sisik ikan or fish scales (RM35 for  a loaf, around a quarter of the cake)…

…which is, in fact, a layer cake with san cha (haw flakes), one of my favourites and even though it does not come cheap, I simply had to buy that as well!

My missus insisted on baking her own cookies even though we already bought a whole lot when we went to Kuching that day.

She made her usual ones, the ones she would make year in and year out, including these old school floral butter cookies…

…and these chocolate chip ones…

…and her Nestum cookies…

…which used to be long like a caterpillar but this year, she went for a different shape.

Then she made these cheese ones…

…that she said my girl and also her niece, the one working in Singapore, love a lot and she just had to make them for  the two to enjoy, especially.

Of course, her cookies were very nice, a cut above the rest, as she used Golden Churn butter, no less!