Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies (花生饼)

I’ve made the peanut cookies for the Chinese New Year again. Those little golden morsels of soft peanut crumbs that simply melt in the mouth like eating a dollop of peanut butter never fail to satiate my cravings. I’ve revised my previous recipe a little and yield a better result. You can grab the recipe after the fold and make sure you check this video I’ve created for this recipe! Much fun.

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Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies - 花生饼
(check out my previous recipe) (yield 30 – 40 cookies)

Ingredients
1. 300g peanuts, fried/roasted and ground until fine
2. 200g castor sugar
3. 250g all purpose flour
4. 200ml of vegetable oil (use sparingly and use only enough to bind the mixture, around 150ml - 170ml)
5. 1 teaspoon salt
6. handful of peanuts, halved
7. 1 beaten egg for glazing finishing touch 

Methods
1. Grind the toasted peanuts till fine and put them in a large mixing bowl. The oil from the ground peanut will make them stick into lumps, use fingers to break them apart.

2. Sift the flour, salt and sugar into the peanut mixture and mix them together until well combined.

3. Drizzle half of the oil into the bowl, use hand and knead the mixture together.

4. Pour the rest of the oil while still kneading the mixture until all the sugar melted and you can roll the mixture up into a ball without sticking to the bowl or your fingers. Then test it with a small lump of the mixture and roll into a ball between your palms. If it doesn’t crumble, then your mixture is ready. If not, add just bit more oil until you can roll them into a ball.

5. Wash, clean and dry your hands. Sit down, turn on the TV and switch to your favourite channel and ready for some ball rolling action.

6. Scoop a tablespoon of the mixture into your palm, and roll them into small balls then place on the baking tray with baking paper.

7. Put a little halved peanut on top of each ball, then glaze it with the beaten egg. Put in the oven for 17 mins or until golden brown.  

Note: once cool down on the rack, put them in an air-tight seal container. Alternatively, you can store in any container with a screw top lid, then seal it with sticky tape.

Tagged as: biscuit, chinese new year, cookies, peanut, peanut cookies, Recipes, 花生饼