Today is Chinese New Year. Even though my country doesn’t celebrate Lunar New Year, I made some Chinese almond cookies to celebrate anyway, since I like making them and then subsequently eating them.
It is odd, though, that someone decided to put ground-up nuts into coin-shaped cookies, isn’t it? I can just imagine how that came about…
China, in the late 17th century
The new year was approaching. Zhang Hua, once again, was facing the prospect of spending New Year’s alone. What would his parents say this year? He could only take the “why aren’t you married yet?” barrage of questions so many times.
He had just finished his survey of the fields in the family farm. It was a good year, and the harvest was plentiful. Everything from rice to nuts to fruits and vegetables. His family would definitely make a good profit. But would it attract a woman? And would she be with him for the right reasons?
Zhang walked down the dirt path toward town. He wanted to get a drink at the local tavern, as he often liked to do to relax after work. Dressed in his outdoor clothes he farmed in, he always looked like an impecunious hobo, and yet today, there was a strange glow about him. Maybe it was because he was hopeful today. Hopeful that he might find the girl of his dreams, here in the tavern.
A young woman entered and took a seat next to Zhang. As she gently sat on the seat, he couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were larger than average. Certainly a lot larger than a lot of the small-chested Chinese women he had seen in these parts. His gaze traveled up her chest to her face, ever so delicate and fair-skinned. Seeing how thirsty she looked, he immediately offered to buy her a drink, which she readily accepted. She introduced herself as Mi Zhu. They told each other where they lived, and, as luck would have it, her house was not even two kilometers from his.
The conversation between them flowed like the Yangtze River after heavy rain. Drink after drink was poured, filling their bladders with water and ethanol. Zhang and Mi were hungry, so they got up to get a snack. They stumbled as if they had just learned to walk. The small café next door was open, so they hobbled in, attracting some stares in the process.
They ordered some scallion pancakes. In the small café, the kitchen was open, and they could both watch as the chef started mixing together flour and water to form the dough. This café was famous for making their scallion pancakes on demand. He kneaded the dough over and over, and then sprinkled on some chopped scallions. As he worked the dough some more, he rolled it around in sesame oil, and then started folding it over. He kept folding and folding, creating more and more layers in the dough. Zhang and Mi’s eyes were transfixed on this man handling his dough. This oily, doughy mass was about to turn into delicious pancakes. The chef cut up the dough into smaller pieces and flattened them into disks. As they hit the hot oil in the frying pan, the sizzle that only comes from delicious fried food hit their ears right before the delicious smell of pancakes frying hit their noses. Their mouths were watering.
Zhang and Mi shared an almost sexual connection with food. Unbeknownst to each other, they were both slightly aroused by this display of pancake-frying. If they had reached down to touch each other down there, they would have both noticed some moisture. But there was no time for that now. Now was the time to eat.
The pancakes were presented to them on a large white plate, with a small dish of soy sauce for dipping. Zhang gestured for Mi to take the first pancake, as he was always chivalrous in his encounters with the opposite sex. Despite the fact that his chivalry had failed to get him laid, he continued this attitude, to Mi’s delight. She dipped a corner of a slice of pancake into the soy sauce and put it into her mouth. Her mouth exploded with flavors of scallion and sesame oil, their fragrance permeating her entire body, warming her to her soul. The mist between her legs became a sprinkle, as she involuntarily moaned with pleasure.
Her moan was audible enough for Zhang, whose own droplet became a small dribble. He had to have some of that pancake in his mouth, immediately. The soy sauce dish almost tipped over from the force with which he dunked his pancake slice. He then shoved it into his mouth like a dhole devouring the last hare in sight. The sight of Zhang demolishing that pancake like an animal sparked a primal urge within her. She had to bed him tonight. There was no other way to satisfy her intense desires.
After paying for the food, Mi practically dragged Zhang out of the café by the arm. She flagged down a rickshaw to take them back to her house, as they were in no shape to walk even one kilometer in their inebriated state. They quietly kissed each other in the back of the rickshaw, both of them anticipating the epic sexual encounter that was to come.
The rickshaw couldn’t get to her house fast enough. Mi thought about yelling at the runner to go faster, but she wanted to remain calm and peaceful for her upcoming experience. Sex under stress is just no fun at all.
They flew into the house and up the stairs into Mi’s bedroom. Their lips were locked together like stones of the Great Wall, their bodies writhing together on top of her bed. His dirty farm clothes soon came off, as did her flowy blouse and cotton pants. As they embraced each other’s nakedness, the rest of the world melted away like the wax of a candle that burned too long. Their fluids were flowing out more rapidly now, trickles turned into streams. The tip of his penis found its way into her vagina, slipping in effortlessly as if their genitals knew no such thing as friction. Her cavern enveloped his member entire, as they both gasped in carnal delight.
Thrusting gently into her, Zhang could feel his heart beating faster with every pump. Mi could feel his pulse in his body part that was inside of her, and her heart seemed to speed up to match his. She closed her eyes and imagined herself floating across the land, a gentle breeze carrying her past friendly seagulls and toward the ocean. Just as she reached the South China Sea, she could feel herself being lifted higher and higher into the sky. She could almost touch the full moon illuminating the ocean. Her hand reached out as she screamed in pleasure, and she snapped back into reality like she was being thrown off a rickshaw, her orgasm subsiding and the color returning to her vision.
Zhang was nearing his own orgasm, as his moans increased in intensity. His vision narrowed to a small area around Mi’s face, the tunneling becoming more severe as his physical pleasure was nearing the point of no return. At the point where all he could see was Mi’s almond-shaped eyes, he could not hold it any longer. His deep, guttural moan coincided with the explosion of semen from his penis, gobs of it shooting into crevasses Mi had never reached herself. They collapsed in a heap, both so satisfied and exhausted.
In the post-coital haze, Zhang remembered that he had promised to help his mother with the menu for the New Year feast at his home. He could not be entrusted with any cooking, but ideas for dishes, they came to him easily. He slipped out of Mi’s house during the night while she slept, her hair falling gently across her beautiful face.
It was morning when he got home. His mother just assumed that he had gone out for drinks with his friends, and asked him if he had come up with any ideas for the New Year feast. She had already thought of the soup and the meat dishes; all she was missing was a festive dessert. What would be an easy but delicious dessert that would celebrate the dawn of a new year? Zhang looked outside and saw a string of coins hanging from the edge of the roof. Feng shui coins they were called, and they were supposed to bring good luck. The round shape of the coins immediately reminded him of cookies, one of his favorite snacks. But they couldn’t just be any old cookies. What would go into them? Some kind of fruit?
Memories of the previous night came rushing back to him. Mi’s sweet lips on his, her warm vagina such a hospitable environment for his penis, and the way his vision blacked out when he was so close to climax. All he could think of was her almond-shaped eyes. The last thing he saw before he reached the highest peak he had ever reached. And it was then that he thought of almonds. Almonds could be ground up into a powder and used as flour in a cookie dough.
His mother was delighted at the idea of almond cookies to celebrate the new year. She had even momentarily forgotten the failure of her twenty-something son to get married at a decent age. But soon, the incessant questions of when Zhang would finally get married began again. His eyes glazed over. The only thing on his mind was Mi and their hot encounter.
Well, I didn’t have some kind of divine sexual inspiration for these, I just got the recipe from here.
Chinese Almond Cookies
1 1/3 cups almond flour, lightly packed
1 cup butter
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
thinly sliced almonds
- Cream the almond flour, butter, and pinch of salt together, creating a chunky mixture.
- Add one of the eggs into the batter, along with the almond extract, and stir until combined.
- Sift together the flour, white sugar, and baking soda, and add to the batter. Stir until just combined.
- Gather the dough into a ball and flatten it into a disk. Wrap the disk in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least two hours.
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- Make balls from the chilled dough about half an inch wide, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about one inch apart, pressing them down slightly to flatten them into disk shapes.
- Place a thinly sliced almond on top of each disk.
- Beat the other egg in a bowl, and brush the tops of each disk with the egg.
- Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges are slightly brown, and cool.
You’re supposed to use a mixer with a paddle attachment for this, but since I don’t have one in my tiny kitchen, I just used softened butter and mixed by hand, and it seemed to work just fine. I ended up with just over six dozen (that’s 72) cookies. For the half-inch balls, I found that using a half-teaspoon measuring spoon and creating balls with that worked quite well.
Here’s the cookie dough. It’s quite crumbly.
The dough gets flattened into a disk, wrapped in plastic wrap, and then refrigerated to harden a bit.
After the dough chilled, I made some balls from it, placed sliced almonds on top, and then put some egg wash on top of each cookie. These are kind of small; I ended up making the cookies in subsequent batches a bit bigger, by filling my half-teaspoon measuring spoon a bit more fully.
After 15 minutes in the oven, they’ve gotten nice and brown.
This recipe makes quite a few cookies, because they’re so small.
The lacquered tops are from the egg wash.
The almond flour and extract give these cookies a distinctive almond taste, and they have this nice sandy texture from the almond flour as well. They’re delightfully buttery and rich. I really enjoy these cookies, I should make some even when it’s not Chinese New Year.
Gong xi fa cai!