Simple Eats – Peanut Cookies

Chinese New Year 2011 Baking Part 1

Chinese Lunar New Year is around the corner once again and usually we would start shopping for new year goodies like cookies and candy etc. This year however, we decided that it would be good to do some baking on our own. Twice the fun for half (or less!) the cost! What better deal can one get? Then came some reading and “research” on what to bake. I’d shortlisted several delectable sounding recipes and the first is Peanut Cookies 花生酥 using an online recipe from a fellow foodie’s blog. They are incredibly easy to make but not short of being aromatic and delicious. I especially like their “melt-in-your-mouth” texture.

Ingredients

200g ground peanut powder
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
100g – 150g coarsely chopped peanut bits (or more)
100g peanut oil or more/corn oil
1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tsp water for egg wash

Method:
1. Put 200g peanuts in a wok and dry fry over low heat till crunchy. Remove the thin membrane and put into a blender and blend till powder form.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, ground peanut powder, icing sugar and salt in a big mixing bowl till well combined. Toss in the chopped peanut bits and mix well.
3. Add in 100g peanut oil or more and mix till a piable dough is formed.
4. Shape as you wish. For me, I use a “clover cookie cutter” from Phoon Huat.
5. Apply egg wash.
6. Bake on a lined tray at 165 °C for 20 minutes or till golden brown. Repeat until all the dough is used up.

Notes:
1. Don’t add in all the oil in one go. If the dough is too dry, you can add more oil. If dough is too wet, you can add more flour.

2. I used ground peanut powder from Phoon Huat instead of roasting and grinding them from scratch. The smaller packaging of250g is sufficient for this recipe.

3. I’m a bit “cheapo” and used those sachets of ground peanut that come together with glutinous rice dumplings (汤圆). My family prefers dumpling in ginger soup and not rolled over the peanut bits for 擂沙 effect anyway. Each packet is about 50g, so 2 packets very nicely do the trick! Apart from coarsely ground peanut, there are also sesame seeds inside. So strictly speaking, these should be peanut and sesame cookies!

5. It’s easier to work the dough by placing it between layers of cling film. The thickness of the cookies are more or less maintained by rolling with a pair of chopsticks lined on both sides of the dough, perpendicular to the rolling pin.

6. It’s quite important to watch over the cookies as they bake, especially when the irresistable aroma of roasted peanuts seeps out of the oven signalling the cookies are almost done.

This is an eggless recipe, quite intriguing for me, personally. Rolling out the dough onto a flat surface (that would be my dining table) first laid with cling film. This saves the hassle of cleaning up later.

Arranging them on the silicon mat and giving them an egg yolk wash over the surface before popping them into the oven!

Baked at 165 °C for about 20 min. My 10 year-old oven doesn’t have a fan to promote heat circulation. So I have to remove the baking sheet from the oven after around 10 min, give it a turn and pop it back in again. This process also allows any water vapour in the cookies to escape making them slightly drier and thus prolonging their shelf life slightly… I think… :p

Voila! Freshly baked peanut cookies! Very simple to make indeed!

So crumbly, probably due to the corn flour in icing sugar and incredibly light on the palate, as I used corn oil for this.

The top seems to crackle a bit but i thought that looks quite enchanting!

Finally a big thank you to Florence from “http://wlteef.blogspot.com/” for sharing this wonderful recipe.

I am submitting this cookie to Aspiring-Bakers # 3 My Favourite CNY Cookies hosted by j3ss kitch3n .