Malaysian Monday #2 - Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies (Fah Sang Peng)

I decided that it is time for me to teach my two girls the ritual of baking cookies for Chinese New Year cookies. We started out with something quite simple (well, simple to make except for the preparation of the peanuts).

I bought the peanuts with skin on and roasted them in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 140C. Then, I had the messy and onerous task of removing the skin. Once that's done, I used the food processor to grind the peanuts.

Ashleigh and Caitlin had fun rolling the dough into little balls and making the imprint on the top. Caitlin had the all important task of painting the egg wash on the top of the cookies.

The first patch that we made were slightly burnt as the oven temperature was set too high.

These photos are from the second batch. Packed and ready as gifts. 

300gm groundnuts, fried/roasted and grinded till fine (taste a few of the nuts before grinding to see that they taste nice and fragrant. Don’t under cook or over burnt)

200gm castor sugar (avoid using granulated sugar because it will cause the cookies to have very rough and hard texture)

250gm flour

About 200-250 ml of oil (use sparingly and use only enough to bind the mixture. I would pour out 200ml 1^st and go from there)

1 teaspoon table salt

Mix the dry ingredients like sugar, salt, nuts and flour in a big mixing bowl with fingertips until they are mixed well and crumbly. Add oil bit by bit and knead the mixture. Once you can roll up the mixture into a small ball without the surface crumbling, then stop adding more oil.

Knead the mixture for a while to ensure that the sugar melts. You can tell by looking at the dough. It shouldn’t have speckles of shiny sugar grains but a smooth texture.

Roll the dough into small balls and place them on a parchment paper and baking tray. Use a circular tube (like a straw or base of a Chinese paint brush) and press gently on the top of the balls to make round indents.

Glaze with egg before baking. To glaze, just beat one egg yolk and brush on the cookie.

Temperature: 120-140C. (my oven is quite hot so I set mine to 90-110C).

Time: About 20 minutes

Makes about 102 pieces

My Little Assistant

 I am sending this to Shaz of Test with Skewer as my 2nd entry for Malaysian Monday.