Homemade Peanut Cookie (Fah San Pang)

I've been on a baking roll (pun unintended) and thought I'll try my hands at some Chinese New Year goodies. These were so good that I abandoned all attempts at photographing them after this shot. I brought some to work as promised and my colleagues were so intrigued and I have inspired a few more to make their own! *beaming with pride*

Peanut cookies were one of my favourites since I was a child. I used to gorge on them so much that I'll fall sick after Chinese New Year. And sometimes, I'll secretly hide one bottle away from the eyes of visiting relatives, much to the chagrin of my parents then.

I used the recipe at Sam Tan's Kitchen but made some adaptation and also noted the amount of oil used. It was easy, fuss free and so yummy. Rope in the little ones in the house with the rolling part and it becomes a family bonding activity!

I cheated on the peanuts by buying ready salted ones; you know, the ones we typically snacked on? But you could always buy unroasted ones and toasting them in the toaster yourself. Either way, they blend well, so no worries there. The advantage of roasting your own is that the cost is way lower. So it's your call.

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients
200g roasted salted peanuts
200g plain flour
100g icing sugar (Caster sugar will not give that fine a texture. Avoid replacing.)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt (more if you used unsalted nuts)
150ml of oil
egg  wash - 1 beaten egg yolk diluted with 1 tsp of water (optional - I skipped these in mine)

Note: Sift your flour, icing sugar, baking powder and salt into a big bowl.

Method
1. Preheat oven at 160 degrees Celsius. Grease baking tin.
2. Blend the peanuts in a chopper till very fine. Almost as powdery as your icing sugar.
3. Add the peanut powder to the flour mixture. Stir to mix well.
4. Pour half the oil into the mixture, and knead into a dough, adding more oil bit by bit if the mixture is too crumbly. Knead until you get a sticky dough. The key is to be able to roll little balls from it without it crumbling. If it's too "wet", just add flour and sugar.
5. Roll into tiny balls and place them on greased baking tray, glaze with egg and press half a peanut into the centre, make sure it is somewhat pressed in. The balls will flatten themselves the rest of the way in the baking, so try not to press down too hard either.
6. Bake at 160 degrees Celsius for 20 - 25 minutes.
7. Cool and store in airtight containers. Try not to finish them before Chinese New Year.

General Tips:
1. Try to avoid getting the dough too wet such that you need to top up on the flour as that changes  the consistency. 
2. For best results, use the unroasted nuts for the piece you press into the balls as these get baked too. Salt them first to get that extra kick you get when using ready ones instead. Best of both worlds.
3. Airfryer users can use the removable base of a cake tin to bakes these. I made mine with airfryer. Same temperature at approximately 15 minutes. Start checking from the 10th minute to make sure they don't burn and remember that they brown a little more even after you take them out (residual heat!).

Happy Snake Year everyone! Wishing everyone good health and prosperity in the year ahead.