2015 Chinese New Year Cookies 杏仁片脆饼

羊年吉祥！

Today is the 13th day of Chinese New Year ( CNY), I hope I am still not too late to wish all my Chinese readers and friends a very happy and prosperous Chinese New Year “ Gong Xi Fa Cai”. As this year is the year of “Goat”, I wish all of you everything very “goat” ( good! )

In the beginning of the year, I had many plans in attempting to make different types of Chinese New Year cookies as New Year gifts to friends and relatives. However, due to recent hectic work schedules all those plans ended down the drain.

However, since I started this blog, it has been customary for me to introduce at least a Chinese New Year dish or bakery to cheer up the new year atmosphere.

Following are the 3 types of common snack food serve during CNY, I managed to make out from my tight schedules.

Almond flakes crisps 杏仁片脆饼, sesame crisps 芝麻脆饼 and crispy filament crab sticks that I made in the very last weekend before rushing back to celebrate CNY with my family in Penang. Due to the time constraint, I didn’t manage to make them in large quantity but only 4 small containers for my sister-in-laws and the occasion my high school reunion gathering.

I was glad these finger foods received good comments.

The easiest was the making of crispy filament crab sticks, by just drying up the filament crab sticks under the sun for 1-2 hours and unrolled into strips and deep fried in medium heat oil. Once the oil was heated up and bubbling, the crab meats were added and heat reduced to brown until crispy. No seasoning needed as the crab sticks were already flavoured.

For the Almond and Sesame crisps, these were basically the same cookies, with different spread sprinkled over the top of the cookies. This round I used almond flakes and white sesame seeds. You can opt to use pistachio, sunflower seeds, black sesame too.

Just a note to highlight, to make really crispy almond crisps, do make sure to spread the batter thinly. Also must make sure you use parchment paper or silicon or fiberglass baking sheet for ease of removal of crisps once it comes out from oven or else you will have difficulty removing the cookies from the baking paper.

Initially, I had a failed attempt when I used normal baking paper resulting in my first batch of sesame crisps being stuck and cannot be removed from the baking paper. I had to carefully remove the crisps with a small knife by scraping them off one by one from the baking paper. At the end many crisps were cracked in the process.

For the second batch I bought a fiberglass baking sheet and I was relieved to be able to remove all the crisps nicely in one piece.

Believe it or not, these egg whites crisps are unbelievable additive, just one bite and I think you'll agree!

 

Almond Flakes Crisp   Ingredients: 4 egg whites ( about 140g) 110g icing sugar 80g low protein flour (cookie flour) 100g Almond flakes 60g butter (melted)   Method Preheat oven at 160 degree Celsius for 15 minutes. Beat egg white and icing sugar till fluffy and soft peak. Add melted butter and flour use a spatula to gently combine well. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or fiberglass baking sheet. Spoon batter (1tsp) onto the lined tray and use the back of spoon to spread the batter to round thin and even layer. Sprinkle with a little almond flakes or Sesame or chopped pistachio. Bake at pre-heated oven at 160C for 12-15mins or until all evenly golden brown. Remove the crisps from the tray once out of the oven while still hot. Store in air-tight container once cool.   杏仁片脆饼   材料: 烤盤布 (鋪底用.烤好易脫餅且不沾黏又能重複使用) 牛油60g 4粒蛋白 (約140g) 糖 粉 110g 低筋麵粉80g 杏仁片 100g   作法: 1.      烤箱設定160度預熱15分鐘。 2.      蛋白加入糖粉，拌打至發，加入融化的牛油和過篩的低筋麵粉再輕輕拌勻成面糊。 3.      烤盤鋪一張烤盤布或不沾纸，盛一小湯匙面糊在烤盤布上再用湯匙將其鋪平均愈薄愈好。 4.      撒上少许杏仁片或芝麻 或开心果片。 5.      放入預熱烤箱，以160度烤12-15分钟至呈金黃色即可出爐。 6.      一定要趁熱將脆饼移放在烤架上待涼。 7.      冷卻後記得裝入密封罐內存储