Kue


Kue is an Indonesian bite-sized snack or dessert food. Kue is a fairly broad term in Indonesian to describe a wide variety of snacks; cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue are made from a variety of ingredients in various forms, some are steamed, fried or baked. Kue are popular snacks in Indonesia, which has the largest variety of kue. Because of the countries' historical colonial ties, Koeé is also popular in the Netherlands.
Indonesian kue demonstrate local native delicacies, Chinese and Indian influences, as well as European cake and pastry influences. For example, bakpia and kue ku are Chinese Peranakan origin, kue putu is derived from Indian puttu, while kue bugis, klepon, nagasari, getuk, lupis and wajik are native origin, on the other hand lapis legit, kue cubit, kastengel, risoles and pastel are European influenced. In Java, traditional kues are categorized under jajan pasar. The well-set and nicely decorated colourful assorted jajan pasar usually served as food gift, parcel or to accompany tumpeng during Javanese traditional ceremonies.
mini, risoles. From all those kue only onde-onde are sweet, the rest are savoury.

Etymology

The term "kue" is derived from Hokkien: 粿 koé. It is also spelled as kuih in Malaysian, and kueh in Singapore. Kue are more often steamed than baked, and are thus very different in texture, flavour and appearance from Western cakes or puff pastries. Many kue are sweet, but some are savoury.
Indonesian kues are usually categorized according to its moisture. Roughly divided under two groups, kue basah and kue kering. In fact, the word kue in Indonesian language is used to refer to not only these kinds of traditional snack, but also all types of cake and some types of pastries. Most kue kering are technically pastries and many Western cakes can be considered as kue basah.

Ingredients

Many of the traditional Indonesian kue, either sweet or savoury, are based on rice flour and coconut. Traditionally, Indonesian sweets uses gula aren or palm sugar, yet powdered sugar or common sugar are also widely used. Rice flour and tapioca probably the most commonly used flour in Indonesian kue. However, due to foreign influences, wheat flour is commonly used. For creamy flavour and texture, traditional Indonesian cakes uses coconut milk, yet today dairy product such as milk, cream, butter, cheese and margarine are also commonly used. Popular flavouring agents and spices including coconut, peanut, green pandan, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate.

Availability

Today, in urban Indonesian society, an assorted choices of kue are popular snack for brunch or afternoon break to accompany coffee or tea. Various traditional kue are often being offered alongside western pastries and cakes in cafes, coffee shops, snack stalls to humble warung kopi.
Traditionally, kue are made prior of certain celebration or events such as lebaran or natal. Indonesian households or community traditionally communally made homemade cakes for celebration and festivities. For example, Keraton Yogyakarta traditionally held Ngapem ceremony, where royal household communally cook kue apem as a part of Tingalan Jumenengan Dalem ceremony. Nevertheless, kue is also a lucrative business, and traditionally available in traditional pasar pagi markets as jajan pasar.
Certain markets are specialized on selling various kue, such as Pasar Kue Subuh in Senen Central Jakarta, that selling kue from dawn to early morning. Visitors can indulge in traditional cakes and cookies, as well as modern ones. Most of the buyers in the Senen purchase in large quantities.
In Indonesia, kue is one of popular street food choices. Some types of kue are marketed by street vendors in wheeled carts, either travelling around frequenting residential areas, or stationed in a busy sidewalk; such as near marketplace or in front of school. Certain kue vendors, such as kue rangi, getuk and kue putu are known ambulating residential areas, while kue ape, kue pancong, kue pukis and kue cubit sellers are often stationing their carts near marketplace or schools.
In the Netherlands, various asoorted selection of koeé are available in Indo toko and eetcafe snack shops.

Kue basah

Most of traditional Indonesian kues are kue basah. Most are moist and soft in texture, steamed or fried instead of baked. Kue basah usually have rich coconut milk, sugar and rice flour content, and rather moist; as the result it can not last for more than a day or two, especially in hot and humid Indonesian tropical climate, in contrast to kue kering that might last longer. The examples of kue basah are:
In Indonesian language kue kering is identical to cookies, both traditional or western derived. Almost all of kue kering are baked or fried with no or minimal water content, thus they has longer shelf life compared to easily spoiled kue basah. Some variant, especially kaasstengels clearly demonstrate Dutch origin. Because it is dried, it last longer than kue basah. Kue kering often served during annual holidays and important festivities, popular to be offered for visiting guests during Lebaran and Natal. Examples of kue kering are: