Strawberry Custard Cookies (Kuih Semperit)
These flaky, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits are somewhat similar to Scottish butter cookies. A traditional favourite among Malaysians, they're pretty simple to make with just four ingredients: corn flour, condensed milk, salted butter and strawberry juice! The only thing you'll need is plenty of elbow grease and deft fingers to pipe out the dahlia shaped designs.
Equipment
- Wilton 1G Star Piping Tip
Ingredients
- 250 g salted butter room temperature (I use Golden Churn butter blocks)
- 167 g condensed milk room temperature
- 500 g corn flour (don't mistake it with corn starch!)
- a handful of candied cherries chopped small
- 6 strawberries juiced
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 120C. Bear in mind that ovens cook differently; I find smaller ovens cook faster compared to larger ones. I've cooked these cookies in larger ovens at 160C and they turned out fine.
- Measure all the ingredients. Chop the butter into smaller pieces, placed them in a bowl, then pour in the condensed milk. With a spatula, gently mash them up until just combined and the butter has mixed well with the milk. Do not overmix because if you mix them too long, the biscuit will over-expand when you bake it in the oven.
- Add in 400g of the corn flour, keeping the balance 100g aside. Using your fingers, gently combine with the rest of the ingredients. Then add in the remaining flour. Knead well.
- Form a small well in the middle of the dough, and spoon in the strawberry juice one teaspoon at a time. Keep kneading the dough with your fingers until combined. At this point, it should be pliant, not too soft or too hard (somewhat like playdough texture) and could be easily pressed out from the piping tip.
- Grease your baking sheet with some butter. Fill the cookie dough into the piping tip until almost full. Use your thumb to push the dough out gently and start piping dahlia shaped patterns onto the baking sheet. Each pattern should be about 0.5 inches high; don't go any higher than that. As you bake it in the oven, the cookie dough will decrease in height naturally. If you make a mistake, you can always start all over again; cookie doughs are quite forgiving!
- Garnish with a slice of candied cherry on top. You can also put chocolate chips if you prefer.
- Place your baking sheet right in the center rack of the oven and bake until golden for 15-20 minutes (maximum bake time is 25-30 minutes). Always check your cookies in the oven as they bake. If the top of your cookies are browning too quickly, simply place a layer of foil on top of the cookies and remove it halfway during the baking time.