Macadamia nuts butter cookies ($25.90) & Ondeh ondeh cookies ($26.80)!
Pre-CNY cookies haul — macadamia nuts butter cookies + ondeh ondeh cookies. The local-flavour CNY cookie tubs at the bakery.
Pre-CNY cookies haul with BB — macadamia nuts butter cookies ($25.90) + ondeh ondeh cookies ($26.80). The local-flavour CNY cookie tub pickup at one of the artisan bakeries.
We picked up:
- Macadamia nuts butter cookies — $25.90
- Ondeh ondeh cookies — $26.80
Total: $52.70 for both tubs.
CNY cookies are the Singapore festival tradition — small tubs of cookies and snacks distributed to family, friends, and as house-visit gifts during the Chinese New Year period. The standard category includes pineapple tarts, kueh bangkit, kueh lapis, and a rotating cast of artisan cookie creations.
The macadamia nuts butter cookies were the substantial tub. Butter shortbread cookies studded with chopped macadamia nuts — the buttery shortbread base providing the foundation while the macadamia adds the proper buttery-rich crunch. Each cookie about a thumb-sized round, with the visible macadamia pieces poking out.
The ondeh ondeh cookies were the local-flavour variant. Ondeh ondeh is the iconic Peranakan kueh — small glutinous rice balls filled with gula melaka (palm sugar) and coated in shredded coconut. The cookie variant translates the flavours into a butter-cookie format with pandan-coloured dough (green tint from the pandan extract) and the gula melaka-and-coconut filling or topping.
This bakery’s ondeh ondeh cookies had the proper local flavour translation. The pandan was real pandan, not just colouring. The gula melaka had the proper deep caramelised palm sugar flavour. The coconut shred topping added the textural variation against the soft cookie base.
The artisan CNY cookie scene has grown over the years. Specialty bakeries do the standard pineapple tarts plus the increasingly local-flavour variants — ondeh ondeh, kaya, kueh lapis, pandan, etc. The tubs run $25-35 each at the mid-tier artisan bakeries; the premium spots run $35-50.
At $25.90 + $26.80 the pair is fair artisan CNY cookie pricing. Some tubs go to family, some get kept for our own snacking during the CNY period.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Excellent CNY cookies pair — would re-order yearly.
