Lunar New Year Cookie Box

Happy Lunar New Year! I hope the Year of the Ox brings you and your loved ones happiness, health, prosperity, and lots of delicious food! I intended to share this cookie box sooner but I’ve been so wrapped up with new year celebrations (safely with my bubble, of course) and recipe testing for both Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day that this box didn’t get shared sooner. I still made it on time though since today is the big day! In case you missed it, I’m going to be sharing a lot of Chinese-inspired recipes this month and hopefully many more this year. I never thought that Chinese recipes would be my thing but I’m more than excited to share more and more of it with you.

This Lunar New Year cookie box is inspired by a ‘Chinese New Year Tray of Togetherness’ (全盒), a goodie box imbued with symbolism. The most classic treats in this tray are the candied items – they are sugared lotus seeds, white gourd, lotus root, coconut strips, shredded coconut, citrus fruit, water chestnuts and carrot. For example, sugared citrus fruits represents prosperity, sugared coconut symbolizes joy across generations, and lotus seeds represents growing a large family. For my cookie 全盒 this year, I made different cookies with flavours I’ve enjoyed growing up: black sesame wreaths, black sesame linzers, shortbread oranges and lion dancers, as well as kinako (toasted soy bean) cookies. All these cookies are shortbread based so the dough can be easily made in advance and frozen until you’re ready to bake them. What I also love about these cookies is that you can shape them anyways you like. You can easily turn the kinako cookie dough into linzers and make the black sesame linzers as cookie rounds instead. You can use whatever cookie cutter you have handy. The orange shortbread cookies are one my favourite because they are so cute and they are full of meaning.

Mandarin Orange Cookies

These mandarin orange cookies are a classic shortbread cookie shaped and coloured as mandarins but Lunar New Year! You can easily make your favourite shortbread cookie dough and just use these as a decorating inspiration.

By Amy

Ingredients

• 113 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 60 g (1/2 cup) powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 120 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
• Orange food colouring
• Matcha powder

Instructions

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, – 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then mix on medium speed for another 2- 3 minutes, until butter becomes pale yellow and the texture becomes fluffy and smooth.
• Add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour, and mix just until the dough comes together, about 30 seconds.
• Remove 3 tbsp of dough and set it aside (this will be coloured with matcha powder or green food colouring for the orange lead). Add orange food colouring to the remaining dough and mix until colour is evenly distributed. Add a tiny bit (about ~1/2 tsp) of matcha powder to the reserved dough to colour in green.
• Gather the orange dough into a ball. Pat down with your hands to form a disc. Wrap the disc in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Chill the matcha-coloured dough as well.
• When dough has firmed up, roll out the orange dough between two pieces of parchment to 1/4-inch in thickness. Using a circle cookie cutter, punch out oranges. Using a fork, prick the surface of the orange to give texture.
• Roll out matcha dough and using a sharp knife, shape little leaves for each orange. Use the knife to create a small leaf for the centre. Gently place leaf on orange. Transfer oranges to a baking sheet lined with parchment then to the refrigerator to chill while the oven preheats.
• Preheat oven to 350F. Once oven has preheated, bake cookies for 8 – 10 minutes, until the edges start to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Notes

I use this base recipe for my black sesame linzers. When adding the flour, also add 20g (3 tbsp) of finely ground toasted black sesame powder. Bake for the same amount of time as the mandarin cookies. Once cookies have cooled, fill with jam of choice. 

Kinako Shortbread Cookies

These shortbread cookies have the wonderful flavour of toasted soy bean. Kinako is often used to dust mochi pieces and other desserts but I love using it in cookies for a warm, nutty flavour. A light drizzle of white chocolate or royal icing adds additional sweetness to these earthy cookies.

By Amy

Ingredients

• 113 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 60 g (1/2 cup) powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 90 g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
• 30 g (1/4 cup and 2 tbsp) kinako powder

Instructions

• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and kinako powder. Set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, – 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then mix on medium speed for another 2- 3 minutes, until butter becomes pale yellow and the texture becomes fluffy and smooth.
• Add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour and kinako mixture, and mix just until the dough comes together, about 30 seconds.
• Gather the dough into a ball. Pat down with your hands to form a disc. Wrap the disc in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
• When dough has firmed up, roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment to 1/2-inch in thickness. Using a circle cookie cutter, punch out cookie rounds and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Chill the cut outs on the baking sheet in the refrigerator as you preheat the oven.
• Preheat oven to 350F. Once oven has preheated, bake cookies for 10 – 12 minutes, until the edges start to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Black Sesame Wreath Cookies

These cookies are like your classic whipped shortbread cookies but they're studded with toasted black sesame seeds which adds so much flavour and texture. It's important that you use toasted black sesame seeds and not un-toasted ones because the toasting process adds incredible flavour.

By Amy

Ingredients

• 113 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 30 g (1/4 cup) powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 120 g all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp toasted black sesame seeds

Instructions

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for at least 5 – 7 minutes. Butter should be pale and very fluffy.
• Add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour and toasted black sesame seeds, and mix just until the dough is fully combined, about 1 minute.
• Transfer dough to a piping bag fitted with an open star tip. Pipe wreaths onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Transfer baking sheet to the refrigerator to chill while the oven preheats.
• Preheat oven to 300F. Once oven has preheated, bake cookies for 16 – 18 minutes, or until edges turn golden brown. Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.