The Making of: Raya Kueh!

This year due to the Great Sin that is National Service, my Ramadan has never felt so foreign, with Raya so distant. But after those dark days, in light of the coming Eid, finally i'm in the mood to share the preparations i had a week prior. So here i am finally blogging the raya kueh-making pictures!Yup me in my totally unglam baking of raya kueh pose! Was hoping Isrin would remove me from her X list and of the 'excess baggage' belief by using the 'house-husband' trump card. Ahakz. With those short shorts i voluntarily enlisted myself to help my mom bake the kueh raya, like i always do every year. She would do her stuff, i would bake them. Vote for the Oven Man!

First up is the King of All Raya Kueh, the mighty Kueh Tart (pineapple tart). Ooh just look at the mother's masterpiece, such detail!

See if you can guess which one is the baked and the not-baked-yet ones..ahakz.

This year i'm the baking king cos i did not cause many black bottoms. Mahahaz. Or maybe bcos the oven was being decidedly nice to a pathetic full-time national serviceman like me. Heh.
You got my temperature rising like, El-nino! More like kueh nino. Ooh.

Second in the list of traditional-kueh-we-make-every-year is the heart-shaped kueh Sugee. Dunno weder that is the right way of spelling it, but saw that was how Raja Kuih spelled it at Geylang the other time. Yeah my mom doing her thang.

I do not know why but every year i'd feel that the kueh Sugee deserve to be accordate a proper respect among the many raya kueh. Perhaps because Sugee is close to the word 'suci' (pure) and that it is white, i get the sense of 'purity' taking a bite off it. Dunno who else feel that way, but i think i am the only weird one. Hehe.

My job requires an intricate process of 'ke kanan lurus'-ing the kueh before they are being sent to the heating chamber. For a moment i thought of gas chambers..you know the Jews..Holocaust..ok nevermind.


Many random faces of me before the actual act.

And this is the view if you are the oven's door, getting ready to receive the kuehs to be baked!


There i told you they look pure. You would almost believe it if i said they were made by the Middle-earth Elves of Lothlorien. Hahaz. And yah i wore plastic gloves to protect myself from getting dirty from the kueh, not the other way round. Get it?

Next up is the kueh kacang. Yup you can see here, enter my father to give that fatherly touch to the making of the raya kueh. Now you know! My mom is here seen observing as our high-level family uses Skippy Peanut Butter as a principle ingredient. Haha the bloody thing just melts in your mouth when you taste it, trust me, leaving your mouth sticky chewy. Ahakz!

Yes the hand of the father showing how it should be done! I can so imagine doing that to Rinny..mahahaz. You watch out Siti Sokyah! Watch and learn..

The original plan was to leave it plain like this. But i seriously objected to that because it looks like giant cockroach eggs. So i sprinkle this:

Now it is perfect, and free of pest eggs. Gosh what would the world do without me!

Ok this is totally random, but the last piece of kueh i deliberately shaped it as the Gandalf's Hat, as i call it..mahahaz. For pure wizarding fun! And yes while baking the kueh i was reading 8 Days, bought it primarily because Glenda Chong was in it. I find her the hottest newscaster alive...especially when she keeps long hair, but i totally detest the short hair, she has the habit of cutting it short every now and then! I use to love watching her during late hours in Channel NewsAsia as she gives the last reports, and i would totally fantasize dating her after work or sumtink. She has that raw quality which is extremely rare in a woman...maybe it comes with age. Hmm. But now i know she got a dog, like eww. And ppl say Cheryl Fox is hot, like noo..those man-jaw of hers? I'll give it a pass. :) Quote: "Forget the Fox, gimme a Glenda" - Hazwan Keong. Wah wah wee..

The next day we continued with what we name the kueh chocolate corn flakes. The day before we stayed up till the wee hours of the night! Wokay let's look at the process. Above my mom cuts the chocolate piece from which they originate in their natural form. Ahakz

And it takes no Willy Wonka to tell you that the chocolate has to be melted.. hmm yummy.

The corn flakes then mixed with the melted chocolate...

Tada! The chocolate corn flakes ready for mobilisation.

Yup the intricate process of placing the corn flakes to the numerous thingys takes years to complete. I took a picture of my siblings helping too, but for some reason it was not saved. And yes i decided to pop in the picture..as usual..

And if you're one of the corn flakes and you look up, this is what you will see. Hee. Very random. Its not obscene or anything rite..artistic aper.

This year in an attempt to make the kueh look more professional i suggested sprinkling the nuts, instead of the usual ugly colourful thingys. Now it looks tastey yeah!

And the chocolate corn flakes ready for inspection. "Tujuh dulang hati kuman..". And on the right, finally the home-made raya kuehs are readily tuperwared, ready to compete with the Raja Kuih!

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Hahaz hope you have enjoyed The Making of: Raya Kueh! Next stop, Raya decorations! Though that would have to come much later after Hari Raya itself. Haiyah. Blame it on the national servitute. The Great Sin. One which could not be cleansed even with years of fasting in the holiest of months.