I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of making cookies with sesame. Why? Because I am surrounded by several choco-holics and bake primarily to their tastes. Let’s just say that the brownie recipe I posted a few weeks ago is still getting good play around here. My 10 year old son whips up a quick batch of these high-protein brownies almost every weekend.
Thankfully, I received the below a few weeks ago from reader Megan LaPrete, to open my eyes to additional baking horizons:
I would like to share with you this recipe for tahini cookies. They are not gluten free and they are loaded with sugar but I love them. I’d like to see if you could come up with something similar. I can’t wait to try your Sesame Truffles.
The lovely recipe Megan sent me is from epicurious.com, one of my favorite food sites. Below is my version, sans gluten and sugar.
Sesame Cookies
Ingredients
- 1¼ cups blanched almond flour (not almond meal)
- ¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅓ cup agave nectar or honey
- ⅓ cup tahini (raw or roasted, though roasted will give more flavor)
- 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil or palm shortening
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup raw sesame seeds , hulled or unhulled -I used hulled
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine almond flour, salt and baking soda
- In a small bowl, blend together agave, tahini, oil and vanilla
- Blend the dry ingredients into the wet
- Form the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in the sesame seeds
- Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and flatten
- Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes until lightly brown
- Cool on baking sheet
- Serve
If you like your cookies crunchy, leave them out after baking. If you are looking for cookies with a chewier center then store them in an airtight container.
What’s your favorite Passover dessert? And Gluten-Free Steve, how many will be at your Seder in Denver? Ours will be small this year thank goodness –probably 7 total.
Hagar says
It was late, kitchen urgently low on resources. Wondered if I could substitute some ingredients and have some fun. Boy was I delighted to find a grape seed oil/agave nectar cookie recipe, and one with sesames!! My grandmother makes these slightly salty, slightly sweet sesame cookies. This seemed pretty close. Like Karin – I used toasted sesame oil, but that was instead of tahini. I used dark agave nectar. Turned out a tad too salty, but mildly sweet – just the way I like.
Thank you for making my evening fun and yummy!
cindy says
I love these cookies! I have made them once with agave and another time with brown rice syrup in the same quantity and they came out great!
Maz says
I LOVE these cookies! I have made them a dozen times now and have taken to replacing the agave with Maple syrup and also mixed in black sesame seeds with the regular sesame seeds to add some colour!
Lydia says
THESE ARE SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lisa says
Delicious! Would recommend doubling the recipe if you’re taking them to a party or seder dinner, the quantities here only made about two dozen small cookies. Thank you!
Karin says
Oh and yes, I forgot. I used toasted sesame oil in place of the grapeseed oil, too, as I am not sure if I can even find grapeseed oil here (I have not seen it so far, but that is in part as I don’t know what it is called in French). The sesame oil worked well, too, and in the same amount as is called for in the version posted here.
Karin says
Elana — thank you so much for these recipes! I am gluten, yeast, and sugar-free & living in Paris. Finding things I can eat here is not easy, and your treats, which I have adapted to be sugar-free, have been very helpful to me.
I wanted readers here to know that I adapted this recipe by adding an organic egg (I can do eggs in small amounts) and a teaspoon of ground stevia leaf, the green stuff, in place of the agave syrup and they came out very acceptable! I write “acceptable” as they were not very sweet, more savory with the stevia not being super-sweet in the amount I used, and I used unroasted sesame tahini, which has a slight bit of bitter bite to it when used in cookies. The bite remained after I first baked them (I had one after they had cooled about 10 minutes) but the ones that were left the following day (! not many were, lol) had mellowed with their bite somewhat. Either that or my tastebuds became immune to it with each subsequent cookie.
I’m hoping to try these again using maple syrup as I will be experimenting with my tolerance to it next, and I have a feeling they will be even better, but if there is anyone out there who needs to stay totally sugar-free (no sucrose, fructose, etc.), these do bake up all right using a teaspoon of stevia leaf and an egg!
I’m just now writing a post at my gluten-free Paris living blog now (linked with my name above) where I will include the link to your recipe and have a photo of my results!
I found myself eating these for breakfast, lol, over the two days they lasted, BTW!
Rachel says
These cookies have become my go-to treats ’cause they’re so easy to make. I just made a batch today as my son and dil are coming in from FL and my dil is GF, also. But this time I put a small amount of Wax Orchard Chocolate Fudge on top of them when they were done baking. Elana, have you ever used this? http://www.waxorchards.com/fudge.htm It is GF/sugar-free/dairy-free and only sweetened with fruit juice. It tastes amazingly rich and delicious.
elana says
Rachel, thanks for sharing the chocolate idea. It sounds so delicious! YUM :-)
Rachel says
Elana, I’m trying to figure out why none of my baked goods works with the time and oven temps that you post. Could it be because I only have a convection oven which is making things cook slower? For these cookies, for instance, I am making them now and after the 350 degrees for 15 minutes, they are nowhere near done, so I put them back for another 15 minutes. I make these cookies every week and in the past have done them at 300 degrees for 25 minutes and they turned out fine. But this time I just thought I’d try your suggestions again to see if I missed something.
elana says
Hi Rachel, it could be a couple of things. I often find when people are having problems with their baked goods being underdone or runny that they are not using the recommended ingredients, so maybe that’s it. Another possibility could be that you’re using the convection instead of regular oven. Do you have only convection? I’m not sure how that would affect the recipes as I haven’t ever used convection for them. Might be a good topic to start in my forums. I hope this helps and please keep us in the loop as to how you progress!
elana says
Carol -They remind me of halva too. Thanks for your comment!