Tahini and peanut butter cookies
I am trying to wind down the kitchen before we leave next week but who am I kidding? I am sure I’ll be cooking until the last minute. Yesterday was two soups and a fennel and asparagus dish, today these cookies and more.
Tahini cookies are not new and I have seen them before but never tried to make them until today. I should have started earlier, they are delicious. Tahini is a sesame seed paste resembling peanut butter so the texture of the cookies is similar to peanut butter cookies, a bit soft and sandy, melt in your mouth, not too sweet and hard to resist.
I adapted the recipe and replaced some of the tahini with peanut butter, I thought it was going to work and it did, but you can make it with just tahini as the original recipe suggests. I also replaced the honey with Silan (date honey or syrup) simply because I didn’t have honey and thought the silan would go with the flavours beautifully. It did.
The cookies bake in less than 15 minutes and are easy to make. They are lovely with a cup (preferably a glass) of fresh mint tisane (herb “tea”). I learned the distinction between tea and tisane in Spain. I got them totally irked when I kept ordering camomile tea. They politely corrected me eventually that I can have tea or camomile, they are not the same thing. With herbs you make tisana (Spanish), or tisane (French), not tea. Lesson learned. Probably should have ordered coffee anyway.
Enjoy.
Tahini and PB cookies
Recipe adapted from NY restaurant Mamaleh’s as featured in Bon Appetite. BTW Mamaleh mean Mommy in Hebrew.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoon silan (date honey or syrup)
1/2 cup tahini paste
1/4 cup peanut butter
Toasted sesame seeds
Directions:
Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a smal bowl.
Place butter in a mixing bowl and mix with a mixer to soften.
Add sugar and date syrup and mix about 3 minutes until fluffy.
Add peanut butter and tahini paste and beat 2 minutes.
Add flour in 3-4 additions mixing it in after each addition.
Use a spatula to give it a final mix scraping from the bottom to incorporate any flour that is still there.
Spread sesame seeds on a plate.
Scoop dough with a small ice cream scoop ( a generous tablespoon) roll into balls and press top gently into the sesame seeds.
Arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet 2# apart and lightly press the balls down.
Bake 13-15 minutes at 350F.
Delicious, enjoy.
6 Comments
Baking soda or baking powder? The instructions say baking soda but the ingredient list says baking powder
Hi Meghan, I am pretty sure it’s baking powder. Haven’t made this in a while. Thanks.
Delicious, but a few small things missing from the written recipe. How much salt? (I guessed 1/4 tsp based on otheer recipes) and you left off the peanut butter from the directions sections, but I assumed add with tahini.
Thanks for a great recipe.
Hi Mollie, thanks for the note. I inserted the missing directions but yes, you were correct to add the PB together with the tahini and the salt is fine with 1/4-1/2 teaspoon. I hope you managed the recipe and enjoyed the cookies. Ciao.
These cookies look so good, Dina. I love sesame, so I need to try these. I didn’t know that about the tea vs tisane, so I learned something new here, too. Happy travels!
Hi Colleen, always nice to hear from you. The cookies were quite good, I think you’ll enjoy. Re: tisane: I always thought tea and tisane were one and the same. I guess not in some countries. Travel is an education. See you next summer.