Peanut Cookies - Crispy Crunchy Munchies

My OTG (Oven-Toast-Grill) was brand new then. It was one of my marriage gifts. And I was desperate to try out some baking! I had been describing to Dee how well mom used to bake biscuits, cakes and even bread. Now, mom too had stopped baking and I wondered if Dee would trust me, if I said I too had learnt and used to make some kinds of cookies. Making some time on a usually busy weekend, fixing up a time, I started out my venture with the new oven. I was used to that huge old round oven, and this new OTG was something unfamiliar to me, but still I wanted to try.

Ok, I called up mom and confirmed the ingredients for a couple of my favorite biscuits, and very confidently started out. Everything was ready and I followed the instructions in the manual to set the temperature, mode etc of the oven. And there I started baking! After about 5-10 minutes, I peeped through the glass to check out my cookies, and Oops! There it had almost got charred!! And istead of expanding and getting crispy, it was a hard lump! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm..... Noooooooooo! It was not even half the time that was mentioned in the manual. And even the temperature was right! What went wrong???

I was totally upset and broken, when as usual, Dee consoled me that it was just the biscuits that had got spoilt, and that I should not spoil my mood for it! Okay, but I needed quite some time to get over with it. But guess what? My FIL who is a great fan of cookies had the un-burnt upper part of it, and said it tasted good! Hmmmmmmm...... I was not sure if he meant it or it was just to console me! Whatever it was, I lost the confidence to bake. But there was always this desire to bake and have home-made cookies.

Now last weekend, after a loooooooooooooog time, I mustered some courage to try it again. Got the old recipe book from mom, not to mess up with proportions. And this time I decided to use the microwave in convection mode, rather than the OTG. So I started out sieving flour, beating butter, mixing the dough, of course with Dee’s help and the first batch - a small quantity of Khara biscuits (recipe some time later) was fairly a success! After taking feedback from the family, I set out to make one of my favorites - Crispy Crunchy Peanut cookies. And it turned out to be great! Just the way I had expected it to be! And Whew! Everyone liked it too. And my baking-confidence is back again!!!

You wanna try some baking???? Here you go.........

Peanut Cookies

Preparation time : 15 min Baking time : 20 min Makes : ~20 cookies Ingredients: Maida - 2 cups (All purpose Flour) Butter - 1 cup Castor Sugar - 1 cup (finely powdered sugar) Cooking soda - ½ tsp (or Baking powder - ¾ tsp) Peanuts - ¾ cup Milk - 2-3 tbsp Salt - a small pinch Method: • Dry roast peanuts and remove the husk • Coarsely powder the peanuts in a food processor / mixer • Separate the bigger pieces from the finer powder and keep aside till needed • Sieve together flour and cooking soda/baking powder 4-5 times. This ensures that the two are mixed well and the cookies raise evenly • Grease a baking tray with a little butter and keep aside till the dough is ready • In a separate bowl beat butter, castor sugar and salt for 2-3 minutes till light and fluffy • Fold in the flour mixture and the finer portion of peanut powder and mix well • Add a little milk and mix, ensuring a good binding consistency • Make small balls of the dough and flatten it with the help of your palms to about 3 cms in diameter and ¾ cm in height • Press one side of this over the coarse peanut pieces, so that one face is coated with peanut pieces • Place these on the greased tray, leaving enough space for expansion • Place the tray in the preheated oven and bake at 190ºC for 18-20 minutes. Check after about 15 minutes and adjust the time, not to over bake or under bake. • Let it stand in the oven for 10-15 minutes before serving hot and crisp cookies • Allow it to cool completely and then store away the rest in a tight container Tips n Tricks: • Beat butter and sugar as much as possible, to get crispier cookies • Do not forget to preheat the oven Variations: • The same can be tried with other nuts like cashews or almonds too