Chinese Walnut Cookies (Hup Toh Soh)

Chinese Walnut Cookies with Chinese New Year red packets

5 from 32 votes

Chinese Walnut Cookies (Hup Toh Soh)

Also known as He Tao Su, these classic vegetarian cookies are easy to make at home, using store cupboard ingredients, and can be made vegan as well (info below). Crispy, crumbly and fragrant, they go well with coffee or milk tea!

Prep Time45

Cook Time24

Course: Appetizer, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: Cantonese, Chinese

Servings: cookies

Calories: 120kcal

Author: Zen

Equipment

Food processor or blender Substitute: ziplock bag and rolling pin
Large bowl
Baking tray and parchment paper Substitute: silpat

Ingredients

3 Cups walnuts pieces (12.3oz or 350g + an additional 37-74 pieces for garnishing. If measuring whole walnuts, you will need about 3.5 Cups, as fewer whole walnuts can fit into a Cup compared to broken walnut pieces) processed into walnut meal and some larger pieces (about 25-35%)

Ingredients A: Whisk together

3.5 C cake flour (15.30z or 435g) Substitute: all-purpose or self-raising (you can omit the baking soda and powder if using self-raising) You can also make cake flour from all-purpose flour.
2 C + 2½T icing sugar sifted. (9.5oz or 270g) Substitute: white caster sugar or granulated sugar. Use caster sugar if you can't be bothered to sift the icing sugar.
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 baking soda
1-1½ teaspoon salt optional. Omit if you want the sweetness of the cookie to be the spotlight

Wet Ingredients

1¼ C neutral vegetable oil (9.5oz or 270g) Substitute: lard, margarine, shortening
2 eggs beaten. Omit if vegan.

Cookie design

3-4 yolks for glazing. Please don't skip this as an unwashed cookie isn't as pretty. If you find it too thick, you can add 1-2t of water of oil, but I find the resulting glaze isn't as attractive. For a vegan cookie, use plant-based milk + maple syrup
37-74 walnuts for garnishing. If you break them into halves you will only need 37 instead of 74. You can use white or black sesame seeds instead

Instructions

Toasting the walnuts

Preheat oven for the cookies (350F/175C/155C fan)
Note: this is the same temperature at which you bake the cookies
Spread the nuts in a single layer on a parchment paper or silpat lined baking tray and toast for 10-15 minutes, or till fragrant. At the 7 minute mark check the nuts, stir, and turn the tray around (as ovens have hot spots).
Allow to cool then process into walnut meal, using the food processor or blender. For more crunch in the cookies, leave 25-35% of the walnuts asbigger pieces. (You can blend for a shorter period of time, or separate out the nuts and crush these with a rolling pin or rough chop.)

Making the cookie dough

Ingredients A: Sift the dry ingredients and mix them together in a large bowl (1 of those stainless steel baking bowls is good)
Add the beaten egg to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Note: we add wet to dry, as adding dry to wet ingredients usually leads to lots of flour flying around!
Slowly pour the oil into the above- you may need slightly less than the recipe stipulates as the walnuts have their own oil.
Note: it's easier to work with a dough that has slightly more oil than a dough with slightly too little oil, as the latter won't hold together very well. We want crumbly cookies that can still hold their shape!

Shaping the cookies (2 choices)

Separate the dough into equal sized pieces. If you're exacting, you can weigh them so you know they're identical. What I usually do is roll the dough into a log, then cut it into bits that are approximately the same size, before rolling each bit into a ball.
Alternative: use a 1.4 inch cookie scoop to scoop out the dough, then press the dough together, or roll them between your palms. (You can't leave them as is or the dough will be too loose.)
Shape A. If you want small circular cookies like Chinese peanut cookies, you can place these directly on the baking sheet, with at least 1 inch between them, so that they don't touch when they spread.
Shape B. If you want the traditional flat cookie (tastes better), place the piece of dough on the baking sheet, then use 2 fingers to press down firmly. Use the same 2 fingers to press down again, but this time perpendicular to the original imprint- so you're making a cross basically- to ensure the cookie is spread evenly. Repeat till all the dough is finished, leaving about 1 inch between each cookie. (These are already flat so spread less.)
Whichever shape you've chosen, glaze the cookie with the egg yolk wash (or vegan wash) then press ½ a walnut on each cookie OR sprinkle some sesame seeds in the centre. (You can also garnish then wash if you prefer, but the yolk will cover up some of the details on the nuts/ seeds.) Alternatively, leave them plain- decoration suggestions for plain cookies in the post above.
Bake 20-24 minutes or till fragrant and golden brown.
Leave to cool completely then store in air-tight containers for 1-2 weeks

Notes

If you don't want to use the oven to toast the nuts, dry fry on medium heat in a pan. This works for smaller batches of cookies.

Wallet-friendly

If you prefer a cheaper recipe which uses less walnuts, use 250g of walnut meal to 535g of all-purpose flour, keeping the rest of the recipe the same. (You may need a bit more oil as there are fewer nuts) However, let the dough rest overnight to fully bring out the flavours before baking - the cookies don't taste as good as the ones in this recipe if baked immediately.

Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its accuracy.

Nutrition