After Susan married her husband Howard (left), she learnt how to make the Anglo-Indian baked treats that he grew up eating for Christmas, like kul kul and cheese straws. These days, he helps her with the baking too. — ART CHEN/The Star
In her mother’s kitchen in Kuala Lumpur, Susan Duff is hard at work. Having baked gingerbread in the family’s vintage 70-year-old oven, she now takes out the finished flare-shaped pieces.
Ever so carefully, she takes one and carefully binds it together with another similarly shaped piece of gingerbread. As the pieces come along, it becomes clear that this clever, gifted home cook has assembled a beautiful gingerbread tree, replete with M&M ornaments and a gingerbread star sitting astride the concoction.
“Does it look good?” she asks, grinning.
Oh yes, it does. But then again, Susan’s talents in the dessert department trace their roots to her childhood, when she used to help her grandmother with the annual Christmas baking.
“When I was little, my granny used to get me to go over to her house during the year-end school holidays and I used to help her make her Cornflakes cookies.
“I worked really hard, pressing it into the mould and then I would come back and do another lot of Cornflakes cookies for our own home.
“I also helped to make jam tarts, vanilla cookies, jelly and coconut candy. I was very busy!” she says, laughing.
When she grew up, Susan became a Montessori teacher and eventually migrated to Australia where she met and married her husband, Howard Duff and had her son Lachlan Duff.
This year, Susan is back in Malaysia for Christmas and is looking forward to baking up a storm. From left: Susan, Howard, Susan’s mother Betty Vincent, sister Jennifer Vincent and Jennifer’s daughter-in-law Amelia Lai. — ART CHEN/The Star
Over the years, Susan began baking and cooking up a storm in Sydney, Australia, where she is now based and eventually started a small home business selling her cakes, cookies and kuih to people hankering after them.
This year, she is back in Malaysia for Christmas with Howard in tow and has already started baking for the big day with her family.
First up on her Christmas menu is of course her grandmother’s heirloom recipe for Cornflakes cookies, a delicious sweet confection with cereal at the heart of its DNA structure. To this day, Susan still uses her grandmother’s 100-year-old spoon – which was passed down to her by her mother – to mould the cookies.
“I actually sell the cookies now, because they have become so popular among my neighbours in Australia. I used to give them away as presents during Christmas but one of my neighbours kept asking if it was for sale, so I started selling the cookies,” she says.
Her gingerbread tree is also a must-have for Christmas and she typically makes up between five to six trees each holiday season.
Then there are her newer Christmas culinary traditions, adopted from her husband’s Anglo-Indian (typically people with mixed race British and Indian ancestry) heritage.
“I grew up in India and Christmas preparations used to start around about October or November. Mum would start making her fruit cakes around that time and she used to make about 15 cakes!
Susan's beautiful gingerbread tree has become a yearly staple.
“And we also used to make kul kul and cheese straws. So when I married Susan, she learnt how to make kul kul and cheese straws from my sister Christine. I could knead the dough and all that, but I didn’t actually know how to make it, so she learnt it,” says Howard, smiling.
Both kul kul and cheese straws have a slightly savoury slant to them – kul kul has to be rolled into a particular shape or moulded over a fork, so it has a gridded quality. It is then fried to perfection and has a taste that is similar to murukku, although the texture is slightly thicker.
Cheese straws meanwhile are embedded with cheese and are incredibly, sensationally good – the sort of thing you can keep eating without even thinking about it.
Susan says keeping up with heritage recipes and making the new ones that she has learnt from the family she married into is important to her and is something that she hopes Lachlan – an avid baker – will continue doing too.
“Lachlan loves baking because I used to bake with him when he was little. So some of his desserts like his chocolate brownies – even I can’t get to his standard now!” she says.
Ultimately though Susan says she is happy to continue baking all sorts of sweet treats every Christmas for as long as she can because she simply enjoys it so much.
“Oh, I just love doing it. It’s so much fun, you know,” she says, laughing.
CORNFLAKES COOKIES
Makes 140 cookies
2 egg whites
1 cup castor sugar
4 cups Cornflakes
1 cup ground roasted peanuts
1 cup desiccated coconut or fresh coconut roasted in oven
2 tsp butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
Beat egg white and sugar until white and soft peaks form.
Add Cornflakes, peanuts, coconut, butter, salt and vanilla and mix well.
Shape the cookies, pressing it into a melon scoop spoon.
Bake at 150°C for 10 to 15 minutes.
KUL KUL
Makes about 200 pieces
200g castor sugar
1 cup coconut milk
salt to taste
500g plain flour
3 tsp semolina
4 tbsp ghee, melted in the microwave
oil, for frying
Mix castor sugar, coconut milk and salt.
Then add flour, semolina and ghee and mix to form a soft dough. Cover with a damp tea towel and rest for 10 mins.
After the resting time, work with a small portion of the dough at a time. Keep the unused dough covered with a damp cloth while you work with the rest.
Pinch a marble-sized portion of the dough, roll it between your palms to make a ball. Then flatten it by spreading it gently with your fingers over the Kul Kul roller. Start rolling from one end to the other to form a curl.
You can also use the back of a fork or a brand-new comb to shape the dough if you don’t have the Kul Kul roller. Place it on a tray lined with baking paper, sprinkled with a little flour. Repeat until it’s all done.
Heat oil on medium heat. Drop one piece in the oil, if it comes up instantly, the oil is ready.
Fry kul kuls a little at a time until golden brown. When the Kul Kuls are golden brown, drain using a slotted spoon and place on some kitchen paper to drain off any excess oil. Repeat until it’s all fried.
Cool them. Then store in an air tight container.
CHEESE STRAWS
Makes about 200 pieces
500g self-raising flour
250g grated cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice
250g salted butter
3 eggs, yolks and whites separated
garlic powder, for sprinkling
Mix flour, cheese, butter and egg yolk until it becomes a nice pliable dough. Note: This is a crumbly dough, place in cling wrap and rest for a while if needed.
Then roll the dough between baking paper into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick.
Cuts strips of about 2 to 3 inch long and place them on a lined tray (with baking paper) a little apart as they will spread.
Preheat oven to 160°C.
Beat egg whites and brush on the cheese straws.
Bake for 10 to 15 mins and sprinkle with garlic powder once done.
Cool and store in an air tight container,
