It must be nearly 20 years ago, I used to help my mother bake these cashew nut cookies every Chinese New Year. I remember I used to help her grind the cashew nuts using a mortar and pestle, pure hard work. It was difficult to grind them into powdery form, which was not a bad thing because you can taste bits of nuts when you bite into the cookies. These days I'm too lazy to bring the mortar and pestle out. All I need is a blender that can grind them finely in 2 seconds! We didn't have an electric mixer as well. So my mother would do the mixing using a large bowl and a big wooden spoon. I remembered the first time we made, all the cashew nuts didn't stick to the cookies well and came off. We learn from our mistakes and brush a layer of egg white so that they can stick well.
Since we shifted house 10 years ago, we stopped baking as it was a built-in oven and we couldn't bring it to our new house. We didn't buy a new oven either. So for years, when I miss the cookies, I buy them from outside and none of them taste like the homemade ones. 2 years ago, I decided to bake my favourite cookies again. I'm still using the old crescent-shaped copper cookie cutter that was probably 20 years old. The new-found recipe was so good that I'm still using it this year.
So now you know the reason why it's my favourite cookies and I must bake it very year. Because it brings back all the good memories. :)
Refer to my favourite Cashew Nut Cookies recipe here.
Wishing all of you a Lucky and Prosperous Tiger Year!
祝大家：身体健康，出入平安，心想事成，虎年行好运!