Recipe - "Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies"

Peanut Cookies

Peanut cookie is one of the popular items served during Chinese New Year. This time round, I did not buy the ready-made Peanut cookies in Malaysia, instead, I baked them here in Sydney. I prefer making them as I can control the amount of peanut butter, margarine and sugar in the cookies.

The Peanut Cookies as shown in the above picture were baked using the following recipe. A perfect peanut cookie should be able to melt in your mouth as soon you take a bite.

Ingredients

            300 gm roasted peanuts

250 gm all-purpose flour

150 gm caster sugar

2 tbsp unsalted butter (melted)

A pinch of salt

Shallot oil/Vegetable oil

1 egg beaten for glazing

Halves roasted peanuts for topping

Procedure

1. Roast the peanuts. You can either fry it with a hot wok or roast them in the oven. Once the skins start turning dark and the peanuts are crunchy, remove it. Let it cool. Rub the peanuts with your hands to remove the loosened skin. Another way to remove the skin is by placing the peanuts into a large colander. By rubbing the peanuts while shaking the colander would allow the skin to pass through easily retaining the nuts.

     2. Grind the peanuts in a food processor or blender. Transfer the grinded peanuts into a mixing
         bowl. Mix with all the above ingredients except for the last three items.

3. Add oil little by little. Mould it until it becomes a dough. Make sure the texture is smooth and it does not stick to your fingers.

     4.  Roll it into the size of a small ball. Gently press in one half of a peanut in the centre of each

          ball. Glaze it with the beaten egg.

     5.  Bake in the preheated oven at 180 C for 10 to 12 minutes.

     6.  Let it cool and store it in an airtight container.