Letter Di Pinda
Introduction: Letter Di Pinda
‘Letter di Pinda’ are delicious peanut cookies baked on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Traditionally, but nobody knows why, they make the letter S, so I'll make a S as well, but feel free to make the letter you want. They are not the most beautiful cookie’s but the taste is irresistible. I got the (slightly modified) recipe from our landlord. Originally, unsalted roasted peanuts were used that needed grinding. I go for convenience and use peanut butter.
Supplies
kitchenware:
2 bowls for mixing ingredients
6 bowls to weight ingredients
1 cup for the eggs
Mixer
Teaspoon
Baking tray
Baking paper
Plastic foil
Scale
Sieve
Oven
Ingredients:
250 G peanut butter
400 G self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground (Ceylon) cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
150 G unsalted butter
225 G Crystal sugar
3 eggs
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond essence
Some flower to cover the workplace and baking tray
Step 1: Bowl 1.
Bowl 1: Sift flour. Then mix all dry ingredients. 763
I use Ceylon cinnamon which has a finer taste but any cinnamon will do.
Step 2: Bowl 2.
Bowl 2: Beat the butter with the sugar to a light cream, then add the eggs 1 at a time. Only add the next egg after the previous egg has been completely incorporated. Then add peanut butter and essences.
Step 3: Combine Bowl 1&2
Add bowl 1 to bowl 2. Mix to a smooth dough.
Let the dough rest for an hour in the fridge.
Because I only want to use a quarter of the dough, I save the rest of it for Christmas, I divided the dough in 4 parts. Also do this when you live in a warm climate to keep your dough cool and easier to work with.
Step 4: Create Letters
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 356° Fahrenheit.
Line a baking tray with baking paper and dust with some flour, the flour makes it easier to shape the letters.
If you want large letters, take a piece of dough the size of a ping pong ball and roll it out into a string of about 20 cm long and 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter, if the dough is very sticky, dust your hands with some flour. Or if you want small letters, make a ball half the size of a pingpong ball and roll it out to 10/12 cm long and slightly thinner than a cm in diameter.
Place the string on the baking tray in the shape of the letter S (or a different letter of your choise).
Bake the big letters in about 25/30 minutes until golden brown and crispy or the small ones in 20/25 min. Let cool and enjoy.
From one package of dough I make 9 letters.
Leftover dough is easy to freeze and will keep for up to 3 months.
The letters can also kept frozen for a maximum of 3 months.
Warning: once you start eating it's hard to stop! 195