Kue Kacang Pandan—Pandan Peanut Cookies
Growing up in Indonesia, I never really liked most Indonesian cookies. It’s because they often taste lighter than European cookies and are not too sweet. Generally, in Asia, you know you make successful desserts, cookies, or sweets when people say they’re not too sweet. Therefore, it’s quite common to find Asian sweets to be…not too sweet. Indonesian cookies are also typically made with vegetable oil instead of butter as butter isn’t a native ingredient. The fat in butter is the sinful key to making baked goods taste rich and I don’t think the flavor can be substituted with other kinds of fat, sorry.
The only Indonesian cookies that I liked back then were nastar (pineapple cookies) and kaasstengels (Dutch-influenced cheese cookies)—they are often made with butter. Some cheap versions of these two cookies can be made with margarine, but butter-based nastar and kaasstengels are my clear winners.
In my adult life, however, I learned to appreciate more diverse flavors. I can now enjoy food that tastes lighter and not too sweet, though I still strongly believe that sweets, desserts, and cookies generally need to be sweet—not incessantly sweet, but a more balanced kind of sweet. And that’s how I still prefer my sweets, desserts, and cookies. However, I do understand that not everyone is like me. Some people pay more attention to their daily sugar intake for health reasons or sometimes on a hot summer day you just want to nibble on something light.
The recipe for today is my take on classic old-school Indonesian cookies, kue kacang or peanut cookies. These cookies are made with roasted peanuts that are ground into grits. To add a twist, I added homemade pandan extract, giving the cookies a fragrant aroma and beautiful green color. If you can’t find fresh pandan leaves, you can also use store-bought pandan extract. You will get an even greener color as it usually contains food coloring. I like my pandan peanut cookies in their natural color, so I don’t bother to add any food coloring. If you live in Indonesia, however, you can use daun suji, a type of leaf that is commonly used as a natural green food coloring. I can’t find the correct translation in English, but the Latin name is Dracaena angustifolia. I believe it’s related to the dragon tree as it looks very similar, but please don’t chop up your house plant—I’m not entirely sure if it’s the same plant!
These cookies are so easy to eat as they are quite light in flavor. My husband gulped down 10 in one go LOL. Sometimes if I feel like making them sweeter, I dust icing sugar on top and enjoy them with a cup of latte.
I hope you try making this recipe and enjoy it as much as I do. I’ll see you in the next newsletter!
Yields 40-45 cookies
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Level of difficulty: 1/3
Keep for 2 weeks in an airtight container
Ingredients:
350g/ 3 cups all-purpose flour
50g/ ½ cup cornstarch
250g/ 1¾ cups shelled peanuts
300ml/ 1¼ cups vegetable oil
150g/ 1¼ cups icing
2 eggs, separate the yolks and the white
½ tsp salt
5 pandan leaves, chopped
2 tbs poppy seeds
Steps:
Preheat the oven to 175°C/ 350°F. Add flour and cornstarch to a big skillet. Turn on the heat of a stove to low and toast the mixture until brown and nutty, about 10 minutes. Transfer the flour to a big bowl.
In the same skillet, add peanuts and toast until golden brown. Transfer to a blender and blend until you get close to a gritty sand consistency. Add to the big bowl with flour.
Add pandan leaves and half of the vegetable oil to a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a sift on top of a bowl. Squeeze the pulp. Keep the green liquid and discard the pulp.
In a big bowl with the flour and peanuts, add icing, 2 egg yolks, salt, pandan extract, and the rest of the vegetable oil. Mix with your hand for about 30 seconds. Do not overmix.
Line a baking tray with a parchment paper. Take a small ball of dough, about the size of a walnut, and roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball slightly and put it on the baking tray. Continue until the dough is finished.
Finally, brush the top of the cookies with egg white and sprinkle a bit of poppy seeds on top. Bake for about 15-17 minutes. Let the cookies cool down first before transferring them to a cookie jar.