These snacks did not exist in South East Asia before colonialism. That is because they are made using typical ingredients and baking methods found in Europe. Typical European waffle recipes would include the classic oil, eggs, sugar, milk and white flour combination to form a batter before being poured into a waffle iron to produce a typical waffle. The Dutch played the largest role in bringing this style of baking to the archipelago due to severe exploiting and complete colonization of Indonesia and Melaka. Although the Portuguese and the British had their share of colonizing and pillaging the region too. 

There are lots of thin waffle biscuits resembling kuih kapit across Europe such as knipertjes in the Netherlands and barquillo in Spain which looks visually similar to love letters but are thicker and sometimes filled. Similarly, kue gapit resembles the Belgian natuurboterwafels. So really, it is hard to set a true ‘origin’ location and date for this delicacy since it has kept evolving from European cuisine to South East Asian cuisine. At what point does a Dutch snack become a truly Malaysian or Indonesian dish? What likely happened was cooks in Melaka and Java were trying to replicate the Dutch/European waffle snacks that they would bring with them. This is still a common practice across the world with, for example, Asian supermarkets in the West selling bubble tea drinks for the westerners to invent their own, completely unauthentic version to suit their pallets. The difference being in the 17th century Indoensians and Malaysians were transforming the dishes to incorporate local flavors such as coconut milk and rice flour and not just dumb down any unknown flavors they encounter.