I have always wanted to make almond cookies for Chinese New Year. I have this recipe for quite some time now but I have not managed to test it. It looks pretty similar to my peanut cookies. Finally, I manged to buy a kilo of ground almond which I used to make torta de Santiago. Now I am making this long-awaited cookies.

Here is the recipe.

As usual I try to use up whatever that I can find in my cupboard. I happen to have dark brown sugar, so I use a mixture of both. I did not process the brown sugar in the chopper, so there are brown specs in the cookies. This sort of gives it an interesting texture/look. I also happen to have a bottle of extra virgin olive oil sitting in my cupboard for quite some time now. Again I use that in place of the light olive oil. In fact you can use any light oil.

Chinese New Year Almond Cookies

Quick Info:

Makes :     Around 50 pieces
Difficulty:  Easy
Cost:         £
Time:        10 mins to prep, 1 to 1 ½  hours to bake

Ingredients

200g  ground almond

250g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

150g golden icing sugar  ( I used 120g icing sugar and 30g dark brown sugar)

200 to 250 ml light olive oil (I used half virgin olive oil and half rapeseed oil)

pinch of salt

1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp water, beaten

Method

1. Dry fry the ground almonds in a non-stick pan over medium heat, until they start to become fragrant and lightly browned, taking care not to burn the almonds.
2. Heat the oven to Mk 4, 180 deg C. 
3. Place the ground almonds, flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl or a stand mixer, and mix it well with the mixing paddle ( k-paddle in my Kenwood) over low-speed.
4. Slowly add in the oil in a trickle, until the dough gets clumpy. You need not use all the oil. Stir and bring it to a ball with your hands. Add a bit more oil if it does not stick together.
5. Form the dough into 2cm balls, and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Press down lightly and seal the sides should it breaks. Then form marks / design with a fork .
6. Brush lightly with the beaten egg.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until light brown.
8. When cool enough to handle, transfer to a cooling rack
9. Store in an air-tight tin/ bottle.

As I have used less sugar, the cookie is not really too sweet. I am just trying to feel less guilty when having this with my tea. 

I hope you like my recipe.

Do let me know how it goes and don’t forget to share and like this with your family and friends.

See you in the next post.

Penang Lassie.