The Winter Solstice

One of the best part of December as a kid was helping Mum make "kuih ee" (glutinous rice ball) to celebrate the winter solstice. I'd beg and beg to be allowed to roll the colourful dough into tiny round balls and run gleefully to the kitchen with strict instructions from Mum to carefully wash my hands before touching the dough.

The sticky glutinous rice dough would be in small mounds on separate trays, usually in colours like red, yellow, green and white. The idea was to pinch off a small piece of the dough, roll them between floured palms into even, marble sized balls which would then be cooked in a basic sugar syrup flavoured with some pandan leaves.

Though as a kid, I would get bored of making them all even sized and would get creative with making a variety of sizes as large as possible, tiny ant sized ones and wriggly snake like shapes, hoping to escape Mum's scrutiny. She'd spot the abnormalities and exclaim "are you trying to choke someone with them?!"

Hub's grandpa passed away just a few weeks ago and his mum is still in mourning so she bought us ready made "kuih ee" from the market instead of making them. They're lovely with icy cold syrup, all chewy just like gummy bears.

Pictured below with teddy gifted from SL to Bubs - sorry, SL, he couldn't wait til Christmas to open his present!