Mung bean-Almond Cookies [綠豆 - 杏仁 餅]

When I saw Sokehah Cheah's version of Macau Almond Cookies, it brought me back to my childhood days - I remember every year one of my neighbours would make  炒米餅 (which I believe is mung bean cookies) for Chinese New Year.  She would leave the cookies to dry under the sun for days before storing them.  Some of the cookies I tried were hard as rock whereas some were crumbly.  I wonder which is the right texture for mung bean cookies. 

I decided to make my own mung bean flour since I have some leftover split mung beans in my pantry.  But I asked myself if it's worth the extra effort to make my own flour since I am only using so little.

However, I knew that it was worth the effort when I bit into the cookies; I could taste the distinctive nutty flavour of the mung bean and the beautiful aroma.  

     

Ingredients:  (Makes 35 small cookies)

125g cooked mung bean flour (refer below for homemade mung bean flour)
30g almond meal (lightly fry for drier almond meal)
50g icing sugar, sifted
30g Rice Bran oil 
30g almonds, lightly toasted - chopped
5 tsp coconut milk

• Preheat oven to 140 deg C.  Line baking tray with baking paper.
• Combine mung bean flour, almond meal and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl. 
• Add in oil and mix together;  then add in the chopped almonds.  Mix well.
• Gradually mix in coconut milk a little at a time.  The dough should remain crumbly but come together when squeezed.
• Take a small piece of  the crumbly dough and press firmly into the mould and remove excess around the edge.  Tap the mould on the counter a few times to knock out the cookie.  
• Place cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 30 minutes with the oven door slightly ajar.
• Let cookies cool in the tray, then gently transfer cookies onto a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

HOME-MADE MUNG BEAN FLOUR

Homemade Mung Bean Flour

Ingredient: 
split mung beans

• Rinse mung beans and drain thoroughly.
• In a frying pan, dry fry the mung beans under medium-low fire.  Stir constantly to prevent burning.
• As soon as you smell the nutty aroma of the beans, that means the beans are cooked.
• Cool the beans completely before grinding them into fine powder.  (I used my Spectablend blender to blitz the beans into flour).
• Sieve to get finer flour. 
• Store flour in an airtight container.  

Note:  I dry fried the mung bean flour again under low fire until light and has a deeper tinge of yellowness.  Let it cool completely before use.  I did this step a couple of days ahead.

I'm submitting this post to the Bake Along event hosted by

 Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce of Kitchen Flavours and Lena of Frozen Wings

and the theme is 'Chinese New Year Cookies'