Salted peanuts and chocolate chips cookies: a perfect combo for those who love the sweet and salty contrast.
In general, I always add a pinch of salt to sweet recipes to enhance the flavors.
I love cookie recipes where, unexpectedly and suddenly, a grain of salt explodes in your mouth, a bit like what happens in the buttery and delicious shortbread cookies I used to make a cookie cake.
Returning to the salted peanut cookies, they came about by chance. However, after tasting them, it was a lucky coincidence.
The secret is to chop the peanuts coarsely with a knife.
You can use all-purpose flour, or a mix of whole wheat and all-purpose flour, or even spelt flour.
They are good for breakfast and after dinner. You can make them for your family, colleagues, friends, or as gifts.
After all, cookies call for sharing. In full Christmas spirit.
The spirit of Christmas
The spirit of my past, present, and, I hope, future Christmases is nourished by rituals.
Some have changed, but that doesn’t mean they’ve been forgotten. Others have been added along the way.
In addition to the great ritual of Christmas dinner, there are several more minor but no less important rituals. It is the whole package that, over time, forms a patina that clings like a garment to the spirit of Christmas that each of us keeps in the folds of our hearts. And it is these that I would like to talk to you about today.
As well as, of course, cookies with salted peanuts and chocolate drops.
The ritual of Christmas cookies
Even though I have lost the religiousness of the past, my rituals are still marked by the Catholic calendar.
The tree is decorated for the Immaculate Conception on December 8, when, at least once, the city lights were turned on and Christmas became an official event.
Today, everything is brought forward a little, in the hope that the magic of the lights will work its miracle.
I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but I understand the reason behind it.
Since I got married, I have celebrated the first evening with the tree lit up, baking cookies that fill the house with their aroma.
In the following days, I bake many more. Always in the evening, after dinner, when the pace slows down.
Home, the tree lit up, lights and candles, Christmas movies in the background, Emma the dog peeking through the kitchen door every time I open the oven door, the smell of cookies, the baking sheets, one batch after another.
Making cookies is a sequence of actions that generates happiness.
Knead, bake, wait. Repeat.
And hence the certainty that the spirit of Christmas must – necessarily – also include a part of cookies.
Buona cucina, Monica
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Salted peanut and chocolate drop cookies
Ingredients
- 70 g of salted peanuts
- 250 g of 00 flour or spelt flour
- 50 g of whole wheat flour
- 1 g of baking powder
- 100 g of cane sugar
- 120 g of (cold) butter
- 2 eggs, regular
- 50 g of dark chocolate drops
Instructions
- Coarsely chop the salted peanuts with the knife and set aside.
- In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and sugar chopped peanuts with a spoon.
- Add the cold butter, cut into small pieces, and the eggs, and begin to knead with your hands, first in the bowl and then on a clean work surface. Try to work quickly so that the butter does not become too warm. When large crumbs form, add the chopped peanuts and chocolate chips, continuing to knead to incorporate both. Form a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.
- Leave to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Towards the end of the resting time, preheat the oven to 180C (350F) degrees.
- Form 20 balls of the same weight, flatten them with your hand to obtain cookies less than 1/2 cm thick, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Leave space between each cookie (about 2cm).
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
Tip
- This cookie is crispy on the edges and soft in the center. If you want a crispier cookie, don't add baking powder.
