As a matter of fact, that happened long before Ramadhan this year. I felt so motivated to try new recipes of Brunei traditional cakes (kuih) because my main goal is if I succeed in baking them perfectly Id open a food business when I return to Brunei for good in the future.

I was completely hard core trying to do it every week during this year’s Ramadhan. The recipe wasn’t my recipe, I found it on YouTube. These traditional cakes I made last month were…

The Beginning…

One of the kuih that attracted a lot of attention was Serimuka. I’m not sure why. It’s not my favorite. I only chose to do it because my husband really wanted to eat so as a good wife *cough, cough I baked it, and to my surprise on the first attempt it baked nicely. There were so many leftovers that we decided to give them to his colleagues. From there, orders continued to come and my last order (hopefully not the last) was for the open house celebration of Hari Raya at the residence of the Brunei ambassador.

I know I’m still yet to learn more about baking, but I can pick which kuih should I sell when I’m ready to come back home.

The Price

The only thing I feel so difficult at this time is the cost of purchasing the ingredients is not as cheap as when you live in Switzerland. For example, 1kg of flour here is about CHF2.10 but in Brunei, 1kg is only BND1.55 which is converting CHF0.68 only. And there are ingredients that can’t be found, or maybe I don’t know what the packaging looks like here. Many of the baking needs gula apong/gula anau/gula Nipah because the texture is still soft and liquidy when adding this into the mix so when it bakes it’ll not harden the kuih. This is the opposite result when you only use palm sugar, although they said you can replace the gula anau with it. I think only the professional is capable of deciphering the code here. Lol. I’m still starting out, so I need to learn more and more.

• Serimuka/Bingka Pandan/Bingka Ubi – $1.50 / 5 pieces
• Pinyaram/Ondeh Ondeh/Puteri Mandi – $1.00 / 5 pieces

Oh, those who are curious to know how much the price of kuih sell in Brunei, here I give you the list of general prices for your information.

They typically sell them in disposable clear plastic containers such as this one.

I hope there are more kuih or non-traditional cakes I could bake next time. I plan on making Mini Chicken Quiche, Raya biscuits, Kosui, and Puding Suji. Yes, there are many of them. Lol. I hope that happens as I hope.

What are your favorite Hari Raya cakes or biscuits?