As Chinese New Year peeps around the corner of New Years, this unique cookie recipe is a twist on your traditional butter cookies — burger cookies! These adorable hamburger cookies not only look cute but they will definitely be more enticing for children (my kids are a testament to that as they absolutely loved this batch of cookies even if they taste equally as good as my original butter cookies!).
Thanks to Mandy who helped us to bake these for Chinese New Year. The cookies were supposed to keep until Chinese New Year which is another 2 weeks away, but my kids finished them off, and there was not a single one left!
What is Chinese New Year?
Chinese New Years is conceptually similar to the universal idea of New Years, albeit it takes a more festive approach by incorporating Chinese festivities and traditions. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival. Chinese New Year is the busiest time for Chinese in preparing to celebrate the biggest festive of the year. Traditionally, the Chinese will bake lots of cookies and cakes as gifts to their family and friends and they are also served to guests during the celebration.
I remember helping my mom to bake lots of cookies as well when I was much younger, the typical ones are Kuih Kapit (similar to vanilla wafers in the West) and Kuih Bangkit, butter cake, etc. We would stand or sit in front of the stove and oven the whole day and night making them from scratch.
Though these hamburger cookies are not the traditional Chinese New Year cookies I am sure they do make a special and unusual Chinese New Year gift for your friend or relative to remember. Likewise, they could be cookies for any occasion too! This mini burger cookies recipe is a fun treat where I basically take the tantalizing idea of a juicy burger and translate it into a cookie burger, veggies, meat patty and all! For all my vegan friends you can easily switch out the meat patty for a red tomato layer to make them into veggie burgers.
The versatility of these mini burger cookies are what I absolutely love about butter cookies! They can come in all shapes and forms but still be equally as edible. Don’t really celebrate Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year? This unique cookie recipe can be served in BBQ parties or children’s birthday parties as well.
Ingredients in this unique butter cookie recipe
All ingredients are in room temperature unless otherwise stated. Equipment that you have to ensure you have to create your burger cookies are things like a sieve, a spatula, a large mixing bowl, a small bowl or two, parchment paper and a roller.
- Butter
- Icing sugar
- Egg Yolk
- Plain/All purpose flour
- Potato Starch
- Ground Almond
- Custard powder
- Cornflakes (milled)
- Cocoa powder
- Matcha powder or Green Coloring
- White sesame seeds (roasted)
As this is a butter cookie recipe that requires an oven to bake them, we won’t be using frostings like red frosting, yellow icing, royal icing or red icing to create the colors of our mini burgers shaped butter cookies. It’s a better way to reduce our sugar intake since butter cookie recipes or cookies in general tend to already require sugar. This helps us maintain a low calorie diet too during Chinese New Year!
Additionally, I also chose to use the natural brown color of cocoa powder and natural green tone of matcha powder to give the meat patty and vegetable layer their colors instead of using brown and green food coloring. It is the easiest way to use the ingredients that we may already have in our kitchens and also reduce the use of unnecessary artificial food coloring.
You may notice that other butter cookies use green coconut as lettuce or an actual peppermint patty. Therefore as a whole you require more ingredients. However this entire hamburger cookie from this unique butter cookie recipe produces crispy cookies fully made of butter, even the “patty layer” and “veggie layer” hence you don’t have to prepare as many ingredients.
Chinese New Year cookies are known to last for months even after the celebrations are over so don’t hesitate to whip them up the day before your BBQ (or whenever you plan to enjoy them and store them in an airtight container until ready to serve.
If you have tried this cookie burger recipe and loved it, I have more recipes in my recipe section for you to master. For more unique cookie recipes, you can try my Gingerbread man cookies, Hello Kitty cookies, Gingersnap cookies and Animal Cookies.
HAMBURGER COOKIE RECIPE
These hamburger cookies make real good memory cookie that many people will remember for a lifetime. Apart from the character looks, the hamburger cookies are delicious, my kids love them a lot.
Recipe adapted and modified from Cartoon Cookies (Y3K Cookbooks)
ISBN#: 978-967-0328-00-3
Enjoy baking them!
Ingredients
- 160g Butter (room temperature)
- 80g Icing sugar
- 1 Egg Yolk
- 150g Plain/All purpose flour
- 60g Potato Starch
- 30g Ground Almond
- 20g Custard powder
- 30g Cornflakes (milled)
- 2 tsp Cocoa powder
- 2 tsp Matcha powder or ½ tsp Green Coloring
- 1-2 Tbsp White sesame seeds (roasted)
Instructions
- Combine butter, icing sugar and egg yolk in a large bowl. Mix well.
- In another medium mixing bowl, sieve together flour, potato starch, and custard powder. Add in the ground almond and milled cornflakes. Mix well.
- Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture, mix again. Pour onto the tabletop, knead with your palms to form a dough.
- Divide dough into 3 portions weighted as below:
100g – Mix with cocoa powder, knead well to allow the color to work in. (Brown as meat patties)
50g – Mix with Matcha color (or green coloring if desired), knead well to allow the color to work in. (Green as Vegetable)
The balance of the dough remains plain color. (Hamburger Buns)
- Shape each colored dough (Brown and Green) into a square or rectangle, divide it into 50 small pieces. Cut and shape round. flatten slightly. Set aside.
- Shape the plain color dough into square or rectangle, divide it to 100 small pieces. Cut and shape round. Flatten slightly.
- Preheat oven to 130-140C, lined baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Arrange the plain dough on the lined baking sheet, 1 inch apart. Stack on the brown dough, followed by the green dough. Lastly, place a piece of the plain dough on top. Stick a little sesame seed on the top. Repeat the process until finished.
- Bake the cookies in the preheated oven at 130-140C for 40 minutes till cooked through. Remove cookies and cool on a wire rack, store in airtight containers when cooled completely.
Notes
Every brand of ovens are different, check your cookies during baking. Look at the base of your cookies, if the base is slightly darker than the original un-bake cookies and the cookies are dry, they are cooked.
vivian tan
Monday 16th of June 2014
So cute... i would like to try out
dina
Tuesday 21st of January 2014
these are too cute. great for a summer bbq!