Getting ready for Chinese New Year with traditional peanut cookies

Chinese New Year is a mere few weeks away and the last weekend I’ve been so busy baking up a storm that I hardly have time to do anything else. Heck, we didn’t even do our spring cleaning yet. *panic* And I’ve like five to six batches of cookies to bake and ‘give away’ as CNY gifts to relatives. *double panic* And CNY seems to be drawing nearer and nearer and I’ve not even got any new clothes! *no panic since I don’t need new clothes anyway*

So, this is what kept me so busy….

I remember when I was younger, in the weeks leading up to CNY, I’d be one of the free labour helping my grandmother make these cookies for sale. She’d be baking these cookies from morning till evening everyday right up the the last week before CNY. Although I didn’t have to help with the kneading, I had to help with rolling the dough into little balls, making the holes in the centre and then ‘painting’ the top with egg to give it the gloss on the top.

My grandmother didn’t have an oven and did not see the need for one as she’d use coal fire and a pot of sand to bake these cookies.  She’d heat up the pot of sand over hot burning coals, then place some coals on a metal sheet to be used as ‘cover’. The tray of peanut cookies will be placed above the sand and then covered with the metal sheet. Don’t ask me how she controlled the temperature because the cookies always came out perfect!

Due to my grandmother’s really, really good peanut cookies, I never ever liked peanut cookies made by others. None has the smoothness and crumbliness and peanut-y fragrant flavour of her cookies. So, finally giving up ever finding peanut cookies that could even resemble grandmother’s, I decided to try making it myself. I’m sure all those years of watching her make the cookies must have accounted for something. So, here it is (with some modifications):

Peanut Cookies Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/2 cup peanuts

1 cup superfine sugar

1 1/2 cups superfine organic molasses

3 cups flour

120ml peanut oil (or any cooking oil)

2 tbsp butter

1 tsp salt

Topping:

1 egg, whisked

Instructions

Since I baked it from scratch, I roast and grind my own peanuts…

Remember to check on the peanuts after 10 minutes and stir it around before you continue roasting it till it is a gorgeous brown like this:

Just make sure it is all cooked. Then comes the tedious process, you will have to remove the skins. Let the peanuts cool a bit (but not too cold) and then place them on a colander (use one with holes smaller than the peanuts). Use the base of a ladle or plastic cup or anything the size and shape of your fist to rub the peanuts against the colander. Rub vigorously and the skin will come off and fall out the holes of the colander. This process should take between 15 minutes to 30 minutes depending on your ‘skill’.

After this, place the skinned peanuts inside a blender / food processor and grind it till fine, somewhat like this:

In a mixing bowl, get your flour, salt and sugar ready, like this:

Then, add in the grinded peanut:

Next, using your hand, rub it all together until you get a crumbly, well mixed dry dough like this:

Now, get ready to add the butter and the oil. First, add in the butter and rub it in. Then, you gradually add in the butter while kneading the mixture to form a dough.

Remember not to pour all of the oil at once or else you’d end up with a soft dough if there is too much oil. Just pour and knead until you get a smooth dough and then you stop adding the oil even if there are a lot of leftover. The amount I gave is just an estimated amount.

You should knead around 30 minutes or so, depending on your ‘elbow power’..heheh…you will need to knead till the dough is smooth and pliable with no clumps of sugar.

Form little balls about1 1 1/2 inch in diameter and place them on baking paper.

Then, you use either the cover of a ballpoint pen, the cover of a chinese brush or in my case, a plastic cookie press tube to make round indentations on the dough balls.

Since I use the tube, the round indentations even has patterns! The final step is to brush the tops of the circles with egg.

Finally, bake these cookies in the preheated oven at 200C for about 15 minutes.Here it is when done:

The final flavour is a rich peanuty taste with just the crunch of the peanuts. Adding the butter is to add some additional flavour to it and let me tell you, it tastes great! Also you can use only molasses (to replace the white sugar) and it will turn out just as good too.

So, if you like peanut butter, you will definitely love peanut cookies aka as fah sang pheng aka Thor Tau Pneah’ because it is like a burst of crumbly melt-in-your-mouth peanuty flavours.

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