Gran's Peanut Cookies

Gran's Peanut Cookies

In my late teens I was fortunate enough to be welcomed into the Mavor family of Beaudesert in southern Queensland. The younger son, Ian, and I climbed many mountains together. His mother, Agnes, always made me welcome at the family dinner table if I was in the area. Gran, as she became known to children and grandchildren, always had her peanut cookies available ("peanut biscuits" in Australia). In her last years, Ian asked Gran to share her recipe for the "Peanut Biscuits."

In the photo below at a Mavor multi-generational meeting Agnes is standing third from the right with Ian on her left.

Gran's Original Recipe

Ingredients

1/4 pound of butter or margarine

1 teaspoon of Bourneville Cocoa

1 cup of sugar

1 pinch of salt

Vanilla essence drops

1 egg

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of small unsalted peanuts that have been browned and skinned


Mix the ingredients well. Place scoops of the mixture on a baking tray and cook until the desired level of brown is reached.


Al's Adaptions to Gran's Original Recipe

Over time I have made a few adaptions, but the taste has not changed.

Ingredients

First, I doubled the mixture. The cookies never lasted long, and if they did, they kept well in a sealed container.

1/2 pound of non-fat margarine

1 level tablespoon of Hersey's Cocoa

2 eggs or a cup of Egg Beaters

2 cups of artificial sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 cups of self-rising flour. (Australians prefer self-raising flour.) If you want to use plain flour, add a level teaspoon of baking powder.

2 cups of small, unsalted, baked peanuts. I prefer the small peanuts to chopped peanuts. Most large grocery stores carry the small, unsalted, baked peanuts in bulk.

Mix all the ingredients well. I use a 1/4 cup measure to scoop the mixture and either bake as cookies or mini-muffins. Coat the baking sheet or muffin pan with olive oil.


Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Let sit for at least 30 minutes before eating, if you can protect them for that long.

The mini-muffins are great as a desert with ice cream. Judy and I prefer the mini-muffins with rum-rasin ice cream. This is the greatest cookie with the greatest ice cream.




Ian on one of our many backpacking adventures in the mountains of southern Queensland.

I consider my adoption by the Mavor family in my late teens one of my greatest privileges and learning experiences at a time when I was setting life-long directions.