Old Time Cookies - La Sam Pia aka Chinese Five Spice Pinwheel Cookie

I am on a roll, after making my first old time cookies for the coming lunar new year, i found myself reminiscing about cookies that we had back then.   

When i was young, making cookies was a family affair,  everyone had a role to play, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins and all. My mum would be in charge of baking the more modern ones (i.e. those using butter/margarine and mostly baked) while the more traditional ones like kuih kapit (love letters) which were made over a charcoal stove were done at my grandma's place where there was a bigger space to setup the stove, working area and all.

We made cookies by the tins back then, recycle aluminium tins which were diligently collected, cleaned and stored away months ahead. No where were the plastic jars with red covers that we use nowadays in sight.

Since mum was in charged of the modern ones, we would make them at night in my home during the weekdays and if we were not too tired by the weekend we will join the gang at my grandma's place during the weekends.  Sessions at grandma's were especially fun although making those love letters over a charcoal stove at an average temperature of 32C was no laughing matter.  There were so many of us, chatting, sweating and laughing while carrying out our roles :) Somehow, traditions got lost, probably because there were no longer enough helping hands around after the younger ones grew up and left our hometown.  Reminiscing old times can be emotional at times...

This cookie that i have here is one that my mum used to make. Unique as there's an oriental touch to it.  A combination of sweet, savory and spicy.  I don't remember coming across it elsewhere. It's a little like the another chinese cookie called 'cow ear' biscuit but it's not, taste wise it's not as complex as those.   For ease of reference, i named it Chinese Five Spice cookie although we nicknamed it 'La Sam Pia' which translates to Dirty biscuit in Hokkien within the family! I know, i know, food and dirt are not suppose to go together, lol! If I remember correctly it was  because Big Uncle commented that they look like they had dirt on them because of the brownish wheel in between and the name stuck!  Btw, it's one of Big Uncle's favorite.

Mum has stopped baking cookies for a long time and she couldn't remember the recipe that she had used for it.  I tried making it last year but it didn't turn out quite right, the texture wasn't there.  It's not the buttery, melt in your mouth type of cookie, more like the crunchy and snap type.  I am pretty happy that it turned out quite like the way i remembered it this time.  I can't wait to surprise her with it and bring some for Big Uncle too :)

After comparing a few recipes, i decided to adapt from a checkerboard cookie recipe to recreate this cookie.  The original recipe used cake flour which i substituted to normal All Purpose flour to get the crunch.

Recipe
Adapted from: Do What I Like

Ingredients 

• 100g butter (room temperature)
• 70g castor sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 egg

Plain dough 

• 130g all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Spice dough 

• 125g all purpose flour
• 5g Chinese 5 spice powder
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Then add in vanilla essence and egg and cream till smooth and well combined.
2. Divide butter mixture into 2 equal portions.
3. Sift in plain dough into 1 portion of the butter mixture and spice dough into the other portion.
4. Blend each dough in its mixing bowl till a dough can be formed. 
5. Cover the dough with cling wrap then roll out each dough into a rectangular shape of 30cm x 20cm. .
6. Place the 2 doughs on top of the another and roll it up like a swiss roll. Roll tightly to make sure the 2 pieces of dough stick together.  The dough will become a long cylindrical shape of around 5cm in diameter. If the dough is too soft, refrigerate it for 5-10 minutes.
7. Cut dough into pieces of around 5mm wide.
8. Bake at 180C for 18 minutes or till the golden brown in colou

I'm submitting this post to the Bake Along event hosted by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce of Kitchen Flavours and Lena of Frozen Wings and the theme is 'Chinese New Year Cookies'.