Sweet and savory butter cheese cookies coated with aromatic palm sugar you will love to munch on. They are easy to make and popular cookies in Southeast Asia.
Please make sure the butter and egg yolk are at room temperature. Combine all the dry ingredients and set aside. Put softened butter (but not melting) and icing sugar in a large bowl. Use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or a hand mixer to beat the butter and sugar until combined and creamy. You can also manually do this with a balloon whisk. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and whisk to combine
Add the cheese and sift in the dry ingredients and use a spatula to mix until you don't see pockets of flour. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
Shaping:
Preheat the oven to 320 F (160 C) for a conventional oven. 300 F (150 C) for a convection oven. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Position the oven racks 3rd from the top and 3rd from the bottom
Pinch off about 8-10 grams of dough and shape it into a round dough ball. Flatten the dough slightly (you can leave it round too) and roll into palm sugar and put on a baking sheet, about 1/2 inch apart. The cookies do not spread much
Baking:
Place the baking sheets on the positioned racks. Bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan front to back, top to bottom halfway through baking. Check for doneness at 25 minutes as every oven can be different. The cookies should be dark golden brown because of the palm sugar, but shouldn't be burnt. They will appear to be soft when just come out from the oven. Cool on the pan set on top of a cooling rack for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool down completely
Store:
Once the cookies have cooled down completely, transfer them to an air-tight container and they can be kept for weeks