the best sesame cookies

These cookies are the kind that just seem too good to be true. Especially if you like sesame. They're really scrummy and really moreish - like halva in bakery form. And if you don't know what halva is, you haven't lived!

My dad loves sesame and so I've grown up with tahini. Tahini sauce with falafel, tahini added to houmous, tahini on toast, tahini spoonfuls from the jar. Tahini is a relatively guilt-free ingredient because it's full of 'good fats' as well as vitamin B and calcium.

But I only recently realised how perfect tahini would be for using in baking - it has a smooth silky texture and like peanut butter, is not explicitly sweet nor explicitly savoury, but is satisfyingly tasty.

So I did a quick google search and found a recipe for sesame tahini cookies. The result? Delicious cookies, not too sweet but moreish in their own way, crisp round the edges with a gooey, melty texture in the middle. Hard to resist eating a second.

Here are the best sesame cookies in all their glory.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (4oz) butter
1/2 cup (3oz) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (4oz) soft brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup tahini paste
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/3 cup (6oz) flour (I used half plain, half self raising, as the latter makes the cookies a bit more cake-like)
1/3 cup (2oz) sesame seeds
and a pinch of salt

1. Add the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and cream/beat together until fluffy.
2. Add the egg and beat in quickly.
3. Slowly add the tahini, baking powder and salt.
4. Mix in the flour until well-combined.
5. Fold in the sesame seeds.
6. Spoon out the cookie dough onto a lined baking tray in balls evenly spread apart - use about a heaped dessert spoon's worth of dough per ball.
7. Bake at 175 degrees celsius for 10-12 minutes.
Recipe adapted from here

This recipe makes about 18 cookies and is very quick and easy to make.

Try them and let me know how they turn out!