Chinese New Year Treats

Update: I added the American conversions to the recipe. I did make these cookies and they were good. By American cookie standards, they weren’t very sweet and they were sort of dry but that is mostly what we find in Asian desserts. They’re not as big on sweets as we Americans are and they aren’t as “big” in general as we Americans are either. 🙂 I also added a tiny bit of Almond Extract. The recipe didn’t make 90 cookies and I made them small but probably not small enough. CNY treats are very petite. This is my picture. Clearly you can see that hers are better or at least her camera is. 🙂 And mine are on a paper plate and hers are on a cute little China plate. They didn’t last long with my son’s friends over so it wasn’t worth washing a dish.

In Singapore right now, everything is Chinese New Year. Red lidded plastic containers with red and gold labels filled with traditional pineapple tarts, prawn rolls and other things that I don’t know the names of. We did buy some peanut pastries yesterday, fried little pastry dumpling looking cookies with crushed peanuts in the middle. Kind of bland for my taste but quite delish with a dab of Nutella! 🙂 World Nutella Day is on CNY weekend so I thought it would be ok to combine the two.

Anyway, I have this blog (that I really like) in my Blog Reader, Mrs. Multitasker, and she posted a recipe for Chinese Cornflake Cookies. Apparently it’s a traditional CNY treat that is not sold widely like the others are so I hadn’t heard of it. But they look yummy. I’m going to Cedele’s to get some and then I will try the recipe for myself. And I might add a dab of Nutella. 🙂 I have to mention that I LOVE that this is a Chinese cookie made with American cereal. Makes my heart smile to unite these two cultures in one bite. Then add Nutella and it’s a mouthful of cultural bonding.

She mentions a few other cool things in her blog post as well so go take a look. I will be ordering pineapple tarts next year from The Hiding Place. I love to support a ministry and get goodies in the process!

Now back to Chinese Cornflake Cookies…

Chinese Cornflake Cookies
Click here for printable recipe.

Ingredients:
(Makes about 90 small cookies. You can make the cookies even smaller than I did and get a larger quantity.)

• 150g icing sugar (2/3 cup)
• 220g unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces (1 cup)
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 280g cake flour (1 1/4 cups)
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 160g Kellogg’s Cornflakes  (3/4 cup)

Directions:

1. Sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl, then drop the pieces of butter into the bowl on top of the sugar. Fit your mixer with the paddle attachment, then beat the butter and icing sugar on low speed for about 10 seconds (to prevent your icing sugar from flying all over your kitchen) before increasing the speed to medium and beating for another 20 seconds or so. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. Add the egg yolks and vanilla essence and beat for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again. Sift the cake flour into the mixing bowl, add the salt, and beat for another 30 seconds.

3. Pre-heat your oven to 175 degC. Prepare your cornflakes by putting them into a ziploc bag, then using your fist to pound on the bag gently so the cornflakes are roughly crushed. Pour the cornflakes into a medium-sized bowl.

4. Use a teaspoon to scoop up half a teaspoon of batter, and use another teaspoon to release the batter into the bowl of cornflakes. Use your fingertips to roll the ball of batter around till it is covered in cornflakes. Place the coated batter onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper, and repeat with the remaining batter.

5. Bake cookies for 22-24 min.