The Kuih Kapit Love Letters

In the 1970s, Kampung Terang was a place where the sun felt warmer, the grass smelled like rain, and the only thing louder than the cicadas was the sound of Mak Cik Kalsom scolding her chickens.

Thirteen-year-old Cindy lived in a wooden house on stilts, surrounded by coconut trees that swayed like dancers. But Cindy wasn’t looking at the trees. She was looking at the house next door, where Ah Tuck was busy fixing his father’s old bicycle.

Ah Tuck was thirteen, with a messy mop of black hair and skin tanned dark from playing football in the muddy fields. He wasn’t just the boy next door; he was the person who always shared his guava with her, even though he knew she’d put too much sour plum powder on it.

The Secret Ingredient

The Lunar New Year was coming, and in the kampung, that meant one thing: Kuih Kapit.

Cindy’s mother, Auntie Ling, was the undisputed queen of the neighborhood’s Love Letter biscuits. For three days, their porch became a factory of sweetness. They sat on low stools over a charcoal stove, the heat making sweat bead on their foreheads.

“Cindy, don’t daydream! The batter is getting thick. Stir!” Auntie Ling commanded, waving a wooden ladle.

Cindy snapped out of it. She poured a thin layer of coconut milk and rice flour batter onto the round iron mold. Clap! She closed the mold and held it over the glowing coals.

Hiss. The smell of caramelized sugar and coconut filled the air. It was the scent of home.

But Cindy had a secret. Beside her was a small stack of paper scraps. In the 70s, you couldn’t just send a text message. If a girl liked a boy, she had to be as clever as a mousedeer.

When Auntie Ling went inside to get more eggs, Cindy moved fast. She used a pencil to scrawl a note on a tiny strip of paper: “Your bicycle bell sounds like a broken duck. Also, I like your new haircut. – S”

She opened the mold, grabbed the hot, pliable biscuit with her bare fingers—“Aduy, hot!” she hissed—and tucked the note into the center before folding it twice into a perfect triangle. It hardened instantly, trapping the secret inside.

The Delivery

That evening, Ah Tuck leaned over the low wooden fence.

“Oi, Cindy! I smell the biscuits from my kitchen also! My stomach already making music,” he shouted, grinning.

Cindy walked over, carrying a recycled biscuit tin. Her heart was beating like a kompang drum. “Take lah. My mother say give to your family. Don’t eat all yourself, later you get a sore throat and cannot play football.”

She handed him the tin. On the very top was a biscuit marked with a tiny, accidental dot of charred batter. That was the one.

Ah Tuck took a big bite of a random one first. Crunch. “Wah, so crispy! Your mother is the best.”

“I made those ones!” Cindy pouted, her face turning red.

“Oh… no wonder a bit burnt,” Ah Tuck teased, dodging the playful slap she aimed at his arm. He spotted the marked biscuit. He didn’t eat it. He tucked it into his shirt pocket instead. “I save this one for later. For study fuel.”

The Paper Trail

The next day, a small paper plane landed on Cindy’s window sill.

She opened it with trembling hands. Inside, in messy handwriting, it said: “My bicycle bell is not a duck. It is a tiger! And the biscuit was very sweet. Too sweet. Like the person who made it.”

Cindy nearly fell off her chair. Alamak, this boy! For the next week, the “Kuih Kapit Express” was in full swing. Every tin Cindy’s mother sent over contained a hidden message.

“Did you finish your Maths homework?” Cindy wrote. “No. Numbers are my enemy. Only football and biscuits are my friends,” Ah Tuck replied via a note hidden inside an empty condensed milk can he tossed over the fence.

The Great Disaster

One afternoon, disaster struck. Auntie Ling decided to host a tea party for the neighborhood ladies.

“Cindy, bring the special tin from the top shelf!” Auntie Ling called out.

Cindy froze. That was the “Special Tin.” The one where she had accidentally put three biscuits containing notes meant for Ah Tuck—notes that were much more “romantic” than the others. One of them said: “I will miss you when you go to the city for high school next month.”

If Mak Cik Leela or Auntie Wong bit into those, the whole kampung would know by sunset.

Cindy rushed to the table. The ladies were already reaching for the tin.

“Wait!” Cindy shouted. “The… the ants! I saw ants in this tin! Let me go check!”

She snatched the tin away just as Ah Tuck’s mother was about to open it. Everyone stared. Cindy’s face was the color of a ripe chili. She ran to the kitchen, her heart thumping.

Suddenly, a head popped up at the kitchen window. It was Ah Tuck.

“I saw you run like a ghost was chasing you,” he whispered.

“Ah Tuck! The notes! They are in the ladies’ tin!”

He didn’t hesitate. He hopped through the window—nearly knocking over a jar of sugar—and grabbed a different, identical tin from the counter. “Swap it. Now. I’ll distract them.”

Ah Tuck walked into the living room. “Auntie! Auntie Ling! Look! I found a giant beetle in the garden! Very rare!”

The ladies shrieked and turned around. In that split second, Cindy swapped the tins.

The Last Biscuit

The sun began to set, painting the kampung sky in shades of purple and orange. Ah Tuck was leaving for the city school the next morning.

They stood by the fence one last time. The air was quiet, except for the distant sound of a radio playing an old Malay song.

“I kept all of them,” Ah Tuck said softly. He pulled out a small tobacco tin. Inside were all the tiny, greasy strips of paper, flattened out and cleaned.

Cindy smiled, her eyes a bit watery. “Even the one about the broken duck?”

“Especially that one.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a final Kuih Kapit. “I tried to fold this myself. My mother helped. It looks more like a crushed pillow than a love letter, but…”

Cindy cracked it open. Inside was a piece of paper with a drawing of two houses and a very wobbly bicycle.

“Don’t forget to bake for me when I come back for holidays. I will bring you the best pens from the city so you can write me longer notes. – Your neighbor, Ah Tuck.”

Cindy took a bite. It was a bit thick, and definitely too hard, but to her, it was the best thing she had ever tasted.

“See you soon, Tiger,” she whispered.

Ah Tuck grinned, hopped on his “duck” bicycle, and rang the bell—Ring! Ring!—as he pedaled into the golden twilight.