Lots Of Chinese New Year Goodies At Home And Don’t Know What To Do With It?–Cookies and Cakes Puddings

Reproduced from my post dated 30-4-2013

For Malaysian and Singapore Chinese, it is a tradition that during Chinese New Year, cookies and other delicacies were being prepared for purposes of entertaining visitors. Families either bought ready made cookies, or as gifts from friends and relatives or prepare themselves. Usually, after the festival, lots of cookies were left untouched. For most family, it is practically impossible to finish all these cookies within a reasonable period of time and before the qualities were compromised. Most families resort to throwing away the cookies.

Looking at the cookies that are sitting in my shelves and realizing it wouldn’t take long before it turns bad, I have decided to try baking the cookie pudding based on the principles of preparing the bread pudding.

I started by layering my cookies (actually, everything that I found from marshmallow to titbits of my kids). I then prepare a liquid mixture of sugar, eggs, butter, and fresh milk . Pouring the liquid mixture over the biscuits or cookies layer by layer. I let it soaked for a while and used forks to press the mixtures until I am convinced that all the cookies were fully soaked. It should then be moist and soft. I then steamed baked the mixtures until set which took approximately 1 hour (Note: for this illustration, I did not use steam bake). Finally, I have my cookie puddings that resemble the bread puddings.

There is no exact recipe, it is of full flexibility. Due to the high fats and high sugars content of the cookies and cakes being served, generally, I did not add additional sugar and only a small quantity of melted butter (about 50 grams but it is optional) for smoothening the puddings. The taste will very much depends on the cake and cookies that you used. Cookies and cakes may be staled but not turning bad yet. They may not be crispy anymore. Chinese New Year seasons is over and your family is tired of having the same cookies for the past few weeks… Either you throw away and you put a small investment and turned it into another bake.

The small investment is some eggs. Even that, you can use some unused egg whites from making certain cakes before Chinese New Year and don’t know what to do with it… As long as there are eggs and milk (substitutable with plain water) and you can prepare this pudding. Eggs are necessary to make it a pudding like structure and act as a binding agent among the various materials. This is nothing new, it is just a simple concept applied to bread puddings. It is simpler than bread puddings as stale bread is tasteless but the cookies and cakes are already well flavoured. Remember, rubbish in rubbish out, quality  staled cakes and cookies used (which I am sure most of your cookies and cakes at home are still edible), a quality cookies pudding will be produced..

This is what I did for 2014 Chinese new year cookies and cakes to make the puddings.

I have lots of cookies and cakes left.. including some that were not included here such as my Steamed sponge cake and strawberry egg white cake.

I started greasing the tin and layer the pudding. Usually the first layer is cakes or bread for shaping purposes.

More variety of cakes and cookies were being added and filled the tin until full. (advisable to fill 90% full and I am too greedy in this illustration. It will expand when bake and shrink down after the eggs are set).

I used some egg whites from the making of Kek Lapis before Chinese new year, another 2 additional eggs and add in a bit (about 50 grams) of melted butter and some milks.. I poured on to the cakes and let it fill the entire tin. You need to wait for a while for the cakes and cookies to absorb the milk. Please refer to this post for detail instructions of filling. Who Said Bread Puddings Must Be Prepared As Such…..Bread Puddings “Reinvented”

I topped with additional red velvet cookies crumbles  and some yellow colour ghee cookies (kueh momo) crumble. I  then baked in the oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 30 minutes or until the puddings become set. Set means the egg mixture starts to solidify and no wavy pattern in the mixture when you pushed the tin.

I served with some  fresh strawberry and strawberry sauce and I prefer to serve it cold. At times I served with milk or even ice creams.

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CONCLUSION

I can tell you very frankly, I dare and I love to eat this cookies and cakes puddings. However, whether or not readers feel comfortable to eat such type of food combinations is up to individual. ….I do this with bread, cookies and cakes and it is a good way of get rid of these stale items at home. This is a simple post, but I would advise you to read this bread puddings for the concept and detail methods of making a bread pudding. Who Said Bread Puddings Must Be Prepared As Such…..Bread Puddings “Reinvented” . You can also read what I did to my 2003 Chinese New Year cookies. In fact, it was the first post of this blog posted on 30th April, 2013. –  Creative Food Series – Cookie Puddings 1  and Cookie Puddings – 2

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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