Walnut Cookies

Walnut cookies is popular during Chinese New Year. I personally have not tried baking it before, but my sister-in-law, who is of Cantonese and Hakka heritage, did mention it occasionally. There are 2 biscuits, or cookies, as the American calls it, that intrigue me. One is this Walnut biscuit and the other biscuit called Wife’s biscuit. I have tried wife’s biscuit many years ago, but I did not like it as it was just crunchy and melt in the mouth but not of much taste.  When I was in Hong Kong a few years back, I came across not only Wife’s biscuits, but Husband’s biscuit, Grandma’s biscuit and Grandpa’s biscuits!. I did not manged to try any of them as I was always eating on the trip. I did try to buy the biscuits at the Hong Kong Airport, but it was sold out.

I had a recipe with me which I intended to try, and that was a few years back! I made this for Chinese New Year and plan to share this recipe. I have tweaked and tested the recipe twice, and it is to my liking. However, things do not always move the way one expects. I did not manage to post it for Chinese New Year. So here is the recipe. The biscuits are crunchy yet light and the taste is good.

Quick Info

Yields:  27 pieces
Difficulty: easy
Cost: £
Time: 10 mins to prep, 60 mins to bake
Smart points:
SP per recipe: 53
SP per serving: 2

Ingredients:

100g Plain flour
½ tsp Soda bicarbonate
½ tsp Baking powder

80g Unsalted butter
50g Castor sugar
¼ tsp Salt
½ tsp Vanilla essence
50g Walnut -toasted, shelled and coarsely pounded.

Extra walnut pieces for decoration

1 Egg yolk mix with 1 tsp water for egg wash

Method:

1. Sift the flour, soda bicarbonate and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a mixer stand or by hand, cream the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.
3. Add in the flour and walnut and gently form into a dough. The dough will be a bit crumbly. Gently press the dough so it sticks. (you may add a bit of oil or a bit of water to make it stick.)
4. Pre-heat the oven to 180C or gas Mk 4.
5. Divide the dough into small pieces. Mine is about 10g.
6. Roll into balls and placed in a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
7. Place the balls with enough room to spread as it will spread when baked.
8. Flatten the ball a bit. If you wish you can use the back of a spoon to make a depression.
9. Place a piece of the walnut ( half or quarter) on top.
10. Brush with egg wash.
11. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.
12. Cool and store in air tight bottles/jars.
13. Enjoy!

Note: I use a Kenwood mixer.

I hope you like the cookies. It is really tasty. Please like and share this post by sending the link instead of cut and paste.

Until the next post, bye.

Penang Lassie.