The "Buah Melaka" Fiasco.

Three days into the month of Ramadan, all is well as can be for the family. This is our second Ramadan in Singapore. Shafiq is into his second year of fasting, and I sure am so proud of him. He wants to be able to fast for one whole month this year as he only managed to fast for 27 days last year. Knowing how determine Shafiq can get when he sets his mind on something, I’m very sure he will be able to go the whole nine yards with the one month fasting.

Iftar (breaking of fast) for us is always a simple affair but there always have to be rice, of course, our staple food. Accompanied with two dishes of either poultry, meat or fish with  one compulsory vegetable dish.  It’s just like our dinner menu on any given day with the exception of some sweet traditional cakes (self made or bought) with some “kurma” (dates) of course and Iced cold drinks.

However, here’s a funny story that I would like to share about my first day of Ramadan this year. As usual, when it’s the very first day, you get all hyped up about it and want to prepare the best home cooked meal for Iftar. Menu for first day iftar was quite simple actually: Rice served with Kari Kepala Ikan Merah, Daging Goreng Kunyit and Sayur Kangkong Goreng Belacan. Decided for dessert, to prepare “Buah Melaka”.

“Buah Melaka” is definitely one of the most simple Malay/Nyonya kuih to prepare and yet somehow or rather, I managed to screw it up. I haven’t made it for a while. Hubby and Shafiq likes it so this particular Mummy was feeling quite excited about making the “buah Melaka” for them. I’m not going to type the recipe for “buah Melaka” because it’s so simple. Just “google” it and trust me, you won’t be disappointed. There’s about 172,000 results for it.

As I was making the dough into balls to be put into the pot of boiling water, I realized that the dough balls were taking a long time to cook. It’s normally just a few minutes affair. Once the dough balls are cooked/boiled, it will float right up to the top, so then you scoop it out and have it coated with grated coconut. This time around though, it took more than 10 minutes, that I was beginning to think that there was something seriously wrong with the flour. The dough balls even after it’s cooked were supposed to be soft when you pressed it with your fingers. When I tried pressing it, it was as hard as rubber. “Mmmm…something is definitely not right” so I tried to break the dough ball into two to check the texture inside and guess what? I had a hard time breaking the small dough ball into two. It was already difficult for me to break it, imagine having to bite and eat it!!!

Oh No!!! The “Buah Melaka” is totally ruined. So much for trying to prepare something simple and nice for the first day of Ramadan. I just couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. I mean, I have prepared it so many times before , so how come the “Buah Melaka” went horribly wrong this time around. So, I did what I thought was the most appropriate thing to do. I googled the recipe for “buah Melaka” on the internet to see what was wrong with my recipe.

Guess what? The reason to the screwed up "Buah Melaka" was because yours truly was using the wrong flour. I used “tepung beras” (rice flour) instead of “tepung pulut” (glutinous rice flour). That explains why the “Buah Melaka” was like a rubber ball instead of it’s normal soft, gooey texture. What an idiot I was! I don’t know what was going through my head when I went to the shop that morning to buy flour.

As there was still a lot of palm sugar, pandan juice and grated coconut left, I threw the first batch of the dough using rice flour (the wrong flour!) and rushed back to the shop to get the correct type of flour this time around. Luckily there was still time to finish up the "Buah Melaka" before I have to pick Shafiq from school at 6pm and Hubby from the office at 6.30pm so that we could be back home in time for Iftar at 7.16pm.

All in all, the “Buah Melaka” turned out fine the second time around. Maybe I’ll just stick to buying the “kuih muih” instead of trying to make them for the remaider of this Ramadan.

Happy Fasting People! :D