CNY Cookies 2014

After baking for the charity bake sale, I managed to bake a few more types of cookies for my family just before the New Year.

The Chinese Peanut Cookies that I already bookmarked very long ago and I needed to use up the peanut oil leftover from the mooncake making few months ago. I went for the easy way of using readymade peanut powder. Maybe next year, I shall blend peanuts on my own.

I'm going crazy about flower design this year. Just so in love with the cutter!

The recipe is taken from Do What I Like. I wonder why I took so long to try making peanut cookies, cos it is so easy, just mix, roll and bake and only need a mixing bowl that's all! And it just crumbles in the mouth full of peanut fragrance. I like!

Ingredients
200g ground peanut powder
200g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g icing sugar (I reduce to 90g still a bit sweet)
1/4 tsp salt
100g - 150g coarsely chopped peanut bits (or more)
100g peanut oil or more/corn oil (I added more than 100g)

Egg wash:
1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tsp water

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. (I make 10g each, I feel a bit too big as I prefer small bite size)
5. Apply egg wash.
6. Bake on a lined tray at 165C for 20 minutes or till golden brown.

Notes:
1. Don't add in all the oil in one go. If dough is too dry, you can add more oil. If dough is too wet, you can add more flour.
2. For the shaping, you can do it in the round balls style or use a bottle cap instead. Put a piece of glad wrap over the bottle cap and press in enough dough - about 9g for this Watson's cap. Lift up the glad wrap and release the shaped cookie onto the baking tray.
3. Use corn oil if you are a "waist-watcher".
4. Use icing sugar instead of castor sugar to get a finer textured cookie.

Recipe is taken from Do What I Like

Next, I made the egg white crisps using the extra egg whites. I made them few years ago. They are originally called Almond Crisps posted by Elyn. I just made the plain version. They are paper-thin and very crispy! Super addictive to eat!

Ingredients
1 egg white (about 40g)
25g fine sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla essence
20g self-raising flour (or plain flour with a pinch of baking soda)

Almond flakes for decoration.

Method
1. Mix egg white, sugar and vanilla essence till sugar is dissolved.
2. Add sifted self-raising flour and mix well.
3. Spread a small amount of batter on the baking paper using the back of the spoon as thinly as possible (almost see-thru). Thinner, crispier.
4. Sprinkle a few almond flakes on top.
5. Bake at 170 degrees for 5 mins or until golden brown.
6. Remove from baking paper immediately. Once it’s cool, keep in air-tight container.

Notes:
1. Do watch the oven during the last minute as it may burn fast.
2. If it burns too fast, lower the temperature according to your oven.
3. Please use non-stick paper, if not your cookies will be stuck (Use Glad baking paper).
4. Please store as soon as it cools, or else it will turn soft.
5. Feel free to add anything u like. Almond, sesame seeds... I tried green tea powder before, also nice!

Playing with different colours for German cookies using the strawberry powder, yam powder and charcoal powder from my Hong Kong trip.

Lastly, my favourite cookies that I have to make every year.

Feeling quite sad. I lost my mini cashew nut cookie cutter after baking this batch of cookies. Left it beside the basin after washing. And it was dinner time, I think someone accidentally throw it away with the rubbish. Couldn't find it anymore. Super sad. This cutter was more than 20 years from my mum. Now I lost it. Don't know where I can find same shape and same size cutter again. My cashew nut cookies will never look the same anymore. :(

Cashew Nut Cookies 2012

These are my Cashew Nut Cookies for the coming Dragon Year. Same recipe, same cookie mould, as usual every year.

每次有人称赞我的腰豆饼时，我就会说：
市面上永远找不到腰豆跟饼干一样大的腰豆饼。只有我家才有。所以一小粒就吃到满口的腰豆香，真材实料。而且得花更多时间制作。一小桶就有上百粒那么多。呵呵，有点自大起来了。:)

I always like to proudly say to people that you can never find anywhere selling Cashew Nut Cookies like mine, which has cashew nut as big as the cookie. I think the size of my cookie cutter does matter. Because it is small, you can put the whole cookie into your mouth and when you bite, you have a whole mouthful of cashew nut fragrance.

This session of photo-taking is exactly the same as the German Cookies. I have absolutely no creativity in food photography.

The two 2 types of hongbao are free from U-weekly magazine. See my mum's hongbao collection here.

These are another batch of German Cookies. The marbled pattern is more obvious and better than the last time.

Although I have a long list of CNY cookies recipes yet to try, I must stop CNY baking already since this weekend will be the reunion dinner and no more messing up the kitchen.

I'll be looking forward to all the posts about your reunion dishes recipes. And do submit to Aspiring Bakers. :)

***

Before I end, just a small note on something I'm not very happy about...

I woke up one day checking the internet, and visiting some of my favourite websites. There is this Singapore Happycall pan group which has a lot of recipes using the Happycall pan. Although I do not own one, I like to check up the recipes there. But I was surprised to find my Cashew Nut Cookies posted by one member. She copied my entire recipe but did not link to my page. As much as I welcome anyone to share and quite happy that people are reading and trying out my recipes, I appreciate if you can link back to me. Trust me, it doesn't feel too good to see that. I usually don't like to confront (or quite afraid to confront), but this I can't stop myself from writing out. I hope the other recipes posted in this group are not similarly copied from other blogs without giving credit.

Aspiring Bakers #3: Cashew Nut Cookies 2011 腰豆饼

Cashew Nut Cookies 2008
Cashew Nut Cookies 2009
Cashew Nut Cookies 2010
Cashew Nut Cookies 2011

I'm a boring and unadventurous person. This is my 4th year making this Cashew Nut Cookies and I'm still using the same old recipe. I shall not repeat and talk the same old stories about how I missed the days I used to bake these cookies with my mum. In fact, this year I did a mini experiment with my old recipe.

I've heard about how adding cornflour can make cookies more melt-in-the-mouth. I've also heard about how adding cornflour can make cookies more crunchy. Don't they contradict themselves? I have also received enquiries about omitting the baking powder.

So I did some experiment in 3 different batches:
Batch 1 - the original recipe with plain flour + cornflour + baking powder
Batch 2 - all plain flour + baking powder (replace cornflour with plain flour)
Batch 3 - plain flour + cornflour (omit baking powder)

The results of the experiment is unbelievable. After trying it for 3 days, 3 at a time. After letting my family try. I still don't find much difference between the 3! If you really want me to choose, I'll pick the one using the original recipe, it is slightly lighter and crunchier then the rest. But mix them all up in the same container and serve, I doubt anyone can tell the difference! Maybe I don't have a digital scale, so my experiment isn't so accurate. ;)

Click here for the original recipe.

I am submitting this cookie to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011), hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

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Cashew Nut Cookies 2010

I hope you don't get bored after seeing the title of the post. It's my third consecutive year baking these cashew nut cookies. If you are new to my blog or haven't read my previous post before in 2008 and 2009, let me tell you again why it's my favourite cookies during CNY.


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!

Cashew Nut Cookies

This is the cookies that I will bake year after year. It's my favourite Cashew Nut Cookies! Besides liking the buttery, crunchy and nutty flavour, it also reminds me of the times when I used to help my mother make it every Chinese New Year.


I only intend to make 2 types of cookies this year. This one and the pineapple tarts, which will be done this weekend. :) I'm pretty satisfied with this Cashew Nut Cookies, using the same recipe as last year's. I double the recipe and use exactly one 250g packet of cashew nuts. I spent about 4 hours to finish making 264 cookies, all by myself! That's excluding the time used to split the cashew nuts, picking out the good ones and leaving the rest of the cashew nuts for grounding. Is it considered fast or slow? I only have a small oven and 3 trays to bake, baking only 40+ pieces per tray, and took 6 trays to finish everything. Not too bad. :)


I will be making the pineapple tarts this week. Haven't decided on the recipe yet. Guess it will be more challenging and more time-consuming because it will be my first time making them. Update you with my next post. :)

Cocoa Yogurt Cashew Nuts Cake

10 March 2008


I baked this Cocoa Yogurt Cashew Nuts Cake with some cashew nuts and remaining yogurt left from the precious yogurt cake. I followed the recipe from Happy Homebaker, but I substituted the instant coffee powder with cocoa powder instead.


I did not cover the cake pan with a layer of foil. Luckily the crumbles did not fall off very much from the cake when I turn the cake out. As described by HHB, it is indeed very very tasty. It really tasted almost like a cheesecake with the 3 layers of crumbles made out of digestive biscuits. My nephew and I were eating and nodding with satisfaction, though I find it a little sweet. I'm thinking the possibility of using oreo biscuits for the crumbles next time. It is really good and I encourage everyone to try this out!

CNY Cookies 2

27 January 2008

I'm back with more CNY cookies for the 2nd week. This week is the cashew nuts cookies. I used to help my mother bake these cookies many years ago. I can still remember the times we baked the cookies during the weekends before chinese new year. But ever since we shifted house, we stopped baking as we did not have oven anymore and she said she's old already and lazy to bake. Ha! Occasionally, during chinese new year, we would miss the cookies we made and buy from bakeries. But most of the time, they don't taste as good as those we used to make.

Finally, this year, I can bake on my own. My mother no longer has her old recipe with her. I have to search for a new recipe to try out. This recipe is taken from the same book as last week's one. I modify it a bit though. The good thing is I'm still using the old crescent-shaped cookie cutter. Luckily she did not throw it away. :)


I couldn't have asked for more. The recipe is great. It's quite close to our old recipe. Definitely have to keep this recipe properly this time so that I can make them every year.


Cashew Nuts Cookies
(Recipe modified from Easy Cookies (and with my mother's past experience))

Ingredients (I make 130-136 pieces)
110g butter
70g castor sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 egg (about 25g)
40g grounded cashew nuts*
180g plain flour
20g cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder

* Bake cashew nuts lightly at 150 deg C for around 10-15 minutes till fragrance is released before grinding

Topping:
1 egg, separated
136 halved cashew nuts

Method
1. Cream butter and sugar till pale and creamy.
2. Add in pure vanilla extract. Add in egg slowly, Beat until well-mixed.
3. Fold in grounded cashew nuts. Fold in sifted flours and baking powder gradually. Knead to form dough.
4. Roll the dough into 3/4 cm thickness. Cut the dough into crescent shapes (or any shape you like) and place them on the baking tray. Brush a layer of egg white on the cookies and top each cookie with one halved cashew nut. (Brushing egg white helps the cashew nut to stick to the cookie well.) Brush a layer of egg yolk on top of the cashew nuts for a nice golden brown colour.
5. Bake at 180C for about 15 minutes till light golden brown.