Love Letters...the edible kind

Toasty, nutty fragrance. Take a bite into its ethereally thin texture and you will be surprised by its satisfyingly rich flavor - a blend of eggs, coconut milk, sugar and rice flour - akin to a waffle but crisp and with so much more depth in flavor. They are light as air too! Consuming a couple dozen of these in a single sitting during Chinese New Year was my childhood favorite thing to do. 

Kuih Kapit, also known as Love Letters is a favorite Chinese New Year delicacy in Malaysia. Why are they called Love Letters? Well, the Nyonya descent who first came up with the recipe was illiterate, thus making these delicious wafer-thin cookies was her way of expressing her love, hence Love Letters! Ok, I just pulled that one off my hat. I'm not quite sure how it really got its moniker; there're many versions of its origin but a brief research revealed that Kuih Kapit was an adaptation of a Dutch cookie, substituted by local (Malaysian) ingredients and made popular by the Peranakan (Nyonya) community in Malaysia. "Kapit" in Dutch means cupid in English, hence the nickname Love Letters. It's very similar to the Italian pizzelle, albeit made with rice instead of wheat flour, coconut milk and requires a much more time-consuming and labor-intensive process as you must cook them in special moulds, one by one, over burning charcoals. Ok, so I confess: D and I cheated! As exciting as the idea of spending the entire weekend toiling over hot charcoals sound, we decided to fire up the gas grill instead. There didn't seem to be any compromise in the flavor department and we're pleased with these little puppies!

I do, however, believe that cooking them over burning charcoals would intensify the flavors - same concept with brown butter. Everything with butter tastes good but using brown butter just elevates it to a whole new level, agree?!

I never knew I had asbestos-fingers. Folding, shaping and rolling these wafers as soon as they are dislodged from the hot mould but before they turned cold was an occupational hazard in and of itself. Getting the batter to be the right consistency and ladling just enough to cover the mould present another set of challenge. Not for the faint-hearted in the kitchen, but certainly a tradition worth preserving. 

Love Letters (Kuih Kapit)

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups rice flour

3 Tbs all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 3/4 cups coconut milk (one 8 -oz can)

3 eggs

2 egg yolks

You do need these special moulds to make the traditional CNY Love Letters. 

Alternatively, you can also use a flat crepe pan or hot plate.

Method:

1. Sift rice and all-purpose flour into mixing bowl.

2. Whisk in sugar, coconut milk and eggs until well blended

3. Strain the batter.

4. Using a pastry brush, lightly grease the mould (or flat pan) with vegetable oil.

5. Heat the mould over the grill (or turn on the heat if using flat pan)

6. When hot, ladle a spoonful of batter over the mould, give it a swirl, clamp the mould tight and return to the heat.

7. Allow to cook on each side for ~ 30 seconds, turning the mould to cook the batter evenly. Scrape excess batter around the mould.

8. Once the batter is golden brown, remove and immediately fold - half, then quarter or you can also choose to roll the wafer like so (INSERT PICTURE). Here's where the asbestos fingers come in! Work quickly otherwise all you get are wafer crumbs once they are cold.

9. Allow to cool and store in air-tight container.

10. Warning: they are extremely addictive!