Peanut cookies galore

The days are becoming shorter. The early setting sun comes as a harbinger of  'on the way' winters. It brings back a lot of memories from my childhood when winters really happened in the city I grew up in. Foggy mornings, basking on the charpoy in the sun,  peeling luscious oranges, the smell of naphthalene balls from pullovers in the trunk , smears of Charmis winter cream(brand is long dead now I believe),  the subtle fragrance of sweet pea flowers in the garden ,chikkis , ginger tea and peanuts. A childhood sans the cable TV made every movie on the idiot box a precious watch.
Huddled up with the family in  heavy quilts, cracking open the peanuts with eyes fixed on the telly..mum reminding to clean up the peanut skins..Those were the best days indeed.

I now realise the source of this flooding nostalgia...its the smell of roasting peanuts in the microwave which is pushing me down the memory lane and I don't feel like coming back..Gosh such a pull!
I don't have much to do today and I could happily wile away hours reminiscing about my good old days.I try not to give in to this pressure of idleness and figure out a middle path. I decide to bake peanut cookies. An unexpected treat for the family, munching on which I can go back to savouring my good old days...

 

To begin with I was actually roasting peanuts for a chutney to accompany my dosas for lunch ( recipe of which shall come some day soon on this blog ) but now I have saved a cupful of roasted skinned peanuts for my cookies. I am  beginning to feel kind of excited about the cookies and wish to deviate from the path most taken, the standard recipe. Another factor is I don't want to use egg..the smell still freaks me out and its Navratras too.  Okay so its going to be a variety of peanut cookies..Finally I decide to bake
1. Standard peanut butter cookies
2.Chocolate Peanut cookies
3. Coffee Peanut cookies

This recipe yields roughly forty mid sized cookies.

Ingredients

Roasted skinned peanuts -1 cup
Wholewheat flour-1/2 cup
Maida flour- 1/2 cup
Butter softened- 1/2 cup
Sugar powdered- 1/2 cup
Baking soda- 1/2 tsp
Milk-2 tsp

Optional
coco powder for 2) Chocolate peanut cookies
 2 tsp Coffee granules plus 2 tsp milk for 3) Coffee peanut cookies

 Preheat the oven at 200 centigrade. Grease the cookie baking tray and keep aside.
Grind the peanuts to a coarse powder.
Mix Sugar and softened butter vigorously.
In a separate bowl, mix the wholewheat flour, maida flour and baking soda.
Now combine this dry mix with the butter and sugar mixture and mix vigorously.
Whisk in the peanut powder.
Add milk if the mixture feels too dry and knead to obtain a soft dough.
Now divide the mixture in three  equal parts.

From one part,make small balls ,flatten and place it on the greased tray. Bake these peanut cookies at 200 centigrade for 15 minutes.Importantly cool before consuming.The cookies come out soft straight from the oven and get their crumbling hard texture on being cooled.

 

For the choco peanut cookies, add 3 heaped spoons of cocoa powder to the second part.Mix and knead again.Make small balls ,flatten and bake at 200 centigrade for fifteen minutes



For the coffee peanut cookies, heat two spoons of milk and add two spoons of strong coffee granules.
Cool this coffee liquid and mix it to the dough.Knead again. If the dough feels too wet to handle, use a sprinkling of flour and make small balls. Flatten and bake for fifteen minutes at 200 centigrade.

Enjoy the warm cookies with ginger tea and you can  almost taste the childhood days in the heart:)