Pancakes with crushed peanuts and sugar

I tried to make Ban Chien Kueh/Apam Balik, a pancake filled with crushed roasted peanuts and sugar. I adapted the recipe from "Pasar Malam Delights - Bilingual version", that I purchased from Malaysia for RM15 last year. (Yes, I bought about 10kg worth of cookbooks back home.. Haha.)


I first this pancake in Petaling St, Kuala Lumpur last year. There was this old man selling them. He was quite old, and he was doing this by himself..


It was a hawker food stand. Cleanliness wasn't that up to scratch of course, but they sure were yummy! Though, one time the man coughed into the pan (not purposely, just because he was choking or was sick...). Of course we didn't buy any then.


Unfortunately, I don't have equipment and utensils that look like this. So the distribution of my heating pan wasn't that great.

And unfortunately, my pancakes did not look like this...


This was crispy on the outside. But I just couldn't get mine to be crispy! :( Plus, my other issue was that my peanuts weren't so crushed. Haha.. I smashed them in a bag for a bit, but they seemed to have resisted and stayed as chunks or formed a crumb. -__-

Man chien kueh/ban chien kueh/apam balik/pancake filled with crushed peanuts and sugar
Makes about 12-24 servings depending on if you chop them into 2 or 4.

340g plain flour
70g sugar
3 eggs
425ml water
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp instant dried yeast

300g peanuts, crushed
50g sugar

butter for greasing pan

Your peanuts should be crushed more finely. I really hated the chunky texture..

Mix flour, baking soda, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Allow to rest for 1hr.

Heat a medium sized pan, grease with butter.
Pour in pancake batter. Cook until little holes start appearing. Add peanuts/sugar on top.
Cook for a little while longer.


Flip pancake in half. Press down gently.
Remove from pan, and slice into 2 or 4 pieces. Serve immediately.


Next time, I'll crush those peanuts better. Perhaps, I'll just go buy the crushed ones in the baking isle of the supermarket. Haha..

CNY: Peanut and sesame brittle

To start off my list of things to make for CNY, I give peanut sesame brittle a try!
How hard is it to make peanut sesame brittle? Not hard.... right?

Well.. a couple of things can go wrong:
1. You don't end up with enough toffee.
2. Your toffee burns.
3. You don't get it to the right temperature so it doesn't harden.
4. You burn yourself.
5. Your toffee hardens too quickly.


Fortunately for me, only #1 and #5 occurred. With my first batch, I didn't mix the peanuts and sesame seeds together. I applied the toffee to the peanuts, then sprinkled with sesame seeds before applying the 2nd sheet of baking paper and rolling it out. With my shortage of toffee, I ended up with peanuts that wouldn't stick, along with sesame seeds also. So I added more sesame seeds to the leftovers and boiled myself some more toffee. So now I have two types of peanut and sesame brittle. Peanut>sesame brittle mini bars and sesame>peanut brittle squares.
I like the ones with more sesame better. Easier to make and tastes better. (I'm not a big fan of peanuts..)


Peanut and sesame brittle
Makes about 550g worth

300g salted roasted peanuts
90g+ roasted sesame seeds
300g sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
150ml water
2 tbsp light corn syrup

Mix peanuts and sesame in a large bowl.
Bring water, sugar, lemon juice and corn syrup to a boil.
Using a candy thermometer, stir and watch until the mixture reaches 150-155C.
Quickly pour toffee into peanut mixture. And mix.
Spoon onto a large piece of baking paper on top of a chopping board.
Sprinkle with extra sesame seeds.
Apply another large piece of baking paper over the top.
Using a rolling pin, roll out to preferred thickness.
Remove top sheet of baking paper.
Slice into pieces whilst still warm.
Allow to cool and it will harden.
Store in an airtight container.