Walnut cookies or ‘Hup Toh Soh’ is a Chinese cookie made of walnut which is crispy & crumbly. Easy walnut cookies recipe, great for Chinese New Year!
I am so glad that my contributor Siew Loon is back from her long hiatus on Rasa Malaysia. Siew Loon is a great friend and she is such a wonderful baker, especially Chinese New Year cookies.
I remember a few years ago, she brought me a bottle of her homemade pineapple tarts when we met up for Chinese New Year.
Anyway, today, she is sharing with us the recipe of Chinese walnut cookies.
Enjoy!
Happy New Year to all Rasa Malaysia readers.
When I was browsing through the various blogs for cookies to bake for the Lunar New Year, this recipe of walnut cookies from Nasi Lemak Lover instantly caught my eyes.
It reminds me of my childhood days where we would go to the market to buy these cookies and eat them with a cup of coffee.
After reading her blog post, I realized that most walnut cookies do not have walnuts in it.
But I have edited the recipe a bit and added ground walnuts and shortening into it as I simply love nuts.
The end result is these absolutely delicious walnut cookies topped with walnut pieces that are buttery, crumbly, and nutty.
They are great for the upcoming Lunar New Year, when friends and family gather together and some cookies to enjoy during the festivities.
They are also very easy to make and you don’t need a mixer because you can mix everything with hands.
To those celebrating Lunar New Year, happy year of horse to you all.
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Chinese Walnut Cookies
Walnut cookies or 'Hup Toh Soh' is a Chinese cookie made of walnut which is crispy & crumbly. Easy walnut cookies recipe, great for Chinese New Year! | rasamalaysia.com
Ingredients
- 250 g all-purpose flour (9 oz.)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 50 g ground walnuts (2 oz.)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 120 g granulated sugar (4 oz.)
- 10 g butter (1/2 oz. + 10 g (1/2 oz.) shortening or 20 g (1 oz.) butter)
- 1/2 teaspoon alkaline water
- 150 g peanut oil or cooking oil (5 oz.)
- 50 g walnut halves (2 oz.)
Egg Wash:
- 1 egg yolk plus 1 teaspoon oil
Instructions
-
Mix flour, baking powder, ground walnuts, salt and sugar in a bowl. Rub butter and shortening into flour until resembles crumbs. Add in alkaline water, peanut oil and mix until the dough forms and becomes soft.
-
Divide dough into 20g each and flatten it a little with fork. Top with half a walnut. Brush the top with egg wash.
-
Bake at 170C (340F) for 30 minutes or until the top is slightly brown.
Recipe Notes
You can use either salted or unsalted butter.
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Agnes Ma
When do you use alkaline water? It is not mentioned in he procedure section but is listed in the ingredient section though.
Tina
I am not really good at cooking and baking but I try. I also like easy recipes. Forgive my ignorance, but what is alkaline water? Is it possible to make it?
Rasa Malaysia
Alkaline water is lye water, it gives the cookies that special texture and taste.
siewloon
You can just add the alkaline water before adding the oil
Liz
Bee, I love walnut cookies. Do you have a conversion chart for the measurements? Thank you for the nice recipe.
Rasa Malaysia
Here you go but following the metric measurement will be the best.
AlohaSis
what type of butter that we need to use? salted or unsalted and do we hv to soften the butter first?
siewloon
Any butter is fine but I like salted ones
E Wells
Just curious to what does the alkaline water do? Can it be substituted or omitted? I personally do not like the taste of it and it is also difficult to find. This recipe is very similar to the almond cookies from the Chinese restaurant k worked at 30 years ago.
Rasa Malaysia
It gives the cookies the texture and special taste. If you omit it, the walnut cookies will become like regular cookies. Lye water is what makes them a “Chinese-style” cookie.
Helena Carion
I do not have a p/W, but every time i try to log in, it states My user name and e-mail address are not registered. Please could you fix this for me? I need a P/W. Thanks.
Nikki Too
Where can you get or buy alkaline water if you cannot make it.
Rasa Malaysia
You can buy alkaline water or lye water at Chinese supermarkets.
Eric
Please advise:
Walnut cookies – the mixture seems very soft (or rather say runny dough) not really become a soft dough as i can’t even shape it. Just wondering if the measuremet for the peanut oil (150g) is correct or is it only needs 50g ?
Thanks.
seebee
I agreed with Eric, 150g is a lot for 250g! I reduced to just 140g but it’s still very runny and not easy to shape. Another thing to point out also if to divide 20g each, don’t think the recipe able to get 40 cookies, Probably 15g will give you 40 cookies. BY have you try this recipe before or if you can ask the contributor the amount of oil is correct? Thanks.
siewloon
I have just baked it and it is fine. It should be soft and a bit difficult to shape. But it will harden after cooling it down. you can reduce the oil by 20g if still too soft or add more walnuts.
Ee Hoon
May I know if caster sugar can be used in this recipe? Thanks!
Rasa Malaysia
Sure you can.
An
Hi, I’m making my 2nd double batch today because I got requests for more, a friend ate ten at one sitting and only stopped because he had eaten them all. I had no problems with the recipe and the oil amount and shaped them with no problem, though I used a cookie small cookie scoop. I omitted the alkaline water because I didn’t have any but they still tasted great and still had a very unique texture. They looked beautiful, akin to peanut cookies. Thanks so much for all your unique recipes.
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Can I use kitchenaid mixer to mix the ingredients together, instead of using the technique of rubbing the butter together with flour?
nette
How many cups of wholewheat flour if I’m going to use this kind of flour rather than the all purpose flour…
Alana
I think if those who had issues issues with too much oil measured the oil by cups rather than by weight it would fix their problems. I can’t figure out how to use my kitchen scale to properly measure liquids, and it always wants me to add more liquid than I actually need. It might be the case for them as well.
Coco
fyi….28.3 grams in 1 ounce