Peanut Puffs (Perfect Tea Time Treats) (2024)

Like this recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out:

• Simple Peanut Butter Cookies with Sprinkles
• Homemade Fried Dough Recipe (Dough Bites in Simple Syrup)
• Ultimate Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake with Oreo Crust
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

Pastry

• All purpose flour- Sift first to break any lumps.
• Cold butter- I use salted butter. You can also use unsalted butter, and if you do, add ⅛ teaspoon of fine salt into the flour. Butter should be firm but sufficiently soft to cut it into cubes.
• Water- Similar to butter, water should be cold. Use ice water if possible, but definitely avoid using warm water as it can melt the butter and make your dough greasy.
• Oil- for frying. Any odorless vegetable oil like canola or sunflower oil will work.

Filling:

• Peanuts - these should be roasted and the thin brown skin removed.
• Brown sugar - to sweeten the filling.

Coating:

• Powdered sugar - best sifted to break any lumps.

🧾Substitution and Variations

• Butter can be substituted with margarine and no extra salted in required other than that mentioned in the recipe. Margarine is salted, similar to salted butter.
• For added flavor, you can add half teaspoon of lightly roasted sesame seeds to the peanut filling.
• Instead of powdered sugar coating, you can also coat these peanut puffs in simple syrup like in this fried dough recipe.
• For a less sweet option, you can also omit the powdered sugar dredge on the puffs. The peanut puffs will taste just as good without the powdered sugar.

Making the pastry

• Sift flour into a medium sized bowl.
• Add the cubed cold butter into the bowl and rub the flour and butter until the butter is well combined and the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. If you are doing this by hand, mix with the tip of your fingers.
• Make a well in the center. Pour in the cold water in batches until the dough comes together into a soft ball. At this stage, the dough will not be smooth.
• Cover the dough and leave it to rest for approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
• Knead the dough until it becomes a smooth ball. You will notice that the dough can be kneaded smooth in just a few minutes after resting.

Making the filling

• To make the filling, dry roast the shelled peanuts. Remove the brown skin.
• Process the roasted peanut coarsely. You can do this in a food processor or by hand in a mortar and pestle.
• Transfer the peanuts into a bowl. Add the sugar and mix well.

Assembling the puffs

• To assemble the peanut puffs, divide the pastry dough into smaller sections. Work with one section at a time for easy handling. Roll the pastry thinly (about 2mm thick) and then cut it into squares. The ones I have on this page were about 5cm squares.
• Each puff is made of 2 of these pastry squares. Add the filling into the center of one piece and cover it with the second piece.

• And then pinch the sides thoroughly to seal the filling so that no gap of unsealed pastry is left. It is important to note that the peanut-brown sugar filling might ooze out while frying if there are any gaps so the pinching process is really important.
• Also, do note that thinly rolled pastry will result in crispy peanut puffs while not so thinly rolled pastry will result in puffs that are crispy on the edges but soft on the inside.

Frying the puffs

• To fry the puffs, add oil into a large frying pan or a deep fryer. Turn on the heat to medium to heat up the oil.
• Once the oil is heated up, add the puffs and fry until golden brown. Turn the puffs over half way through frying so that both sides cook well.
• Transfer the puffs with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with kitchen towels to absorb excess oil.
• Place the puffs on a serving plate and dust them with powdered sugar before serving.

🍽️Serving & storage

• These peanut puffs are best eaten fresh, on the day they are made. I often make them a few hours before serving. That way, the puffs have fresh crispiness to them. Keeping them overnight causes them to lose this crispiness and they tend to become a bit dry.
• You can, however, mix the pastry dough and make the filling in advance. The pastry can be made and refrigerated 2 or 3 days in advance. The filling, can be made up to one week in advance.

💡Expert Tips

• The peanuts were dry roasted on a pan on the stovetop until they were well cooked and crunchy. Once the peanuts were cool, ground them coarsely. I prefer the peanuts to be slightly chunky and so I only ground them very slightly. And then add brown sugar to the ground peanuts and the filling is ready.If you like them finer, you can grind them finer.
• It's always better assemble and dry the puffs in batches as the sugar in the peanut filling might start melting in the uncooked puffs after some time (after assembling) and that might result in the sugar oozing out of the puffs (even though the puffs have been well sealed) when frying.
• You can use any vegetable oil for frying the puffs. I used palm oil. Peanut oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and coconut oil (in liquid form) will be good options for frying these treats too.

💭FAQs