Salted Dark Chocolate Tahini Cookies

Quarantine has been a big chocolate chip cookie time for me: with oatmeal, with pretzels, and now, with tahini. I’ve seen the NYTimes tahini chocolate chip cookie recipe swirling for years now and never tried it. Enter, the running quarantine fight my dad and I have on whether tahini tasting like peanut butter. I vehemently disagree, as I hate peanut butter but like tahini. Yet, it got me thinking about all the tahini cookie recipes— would the nutty taste lend itself well? IT DOES! Turns out that it makes picture perfect cookies, that don’t really taste like tahini but have a depth to them that your typical cookie does not.

Ingredients:

(Makes 2 dozen good sized cookies)

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• ½ cup tahini 
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 ¾ cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Get butter out and let sit so can be room temperature as you gather other ingredients.
2. Beat butter, tahini, and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon till fluffy. Scrape down sides, and add eggs and vanilla till incorporated.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl with a fork. Slowly pour into the tahini mixture, stirring as you go. Do not over stir.
4. Let sit while you preheat the oven to 350F. Use your hands to form cookie balls, and put them farther apart than you’d expect (these spread!) on a baking sheet. Tap sheet three times on counter to flatten, then cook for about 15 minutes. Take out halfway through, tap on the counter 3 times, then put back in oven facing the opposite way.
5. These are going to be lighter cookie colors due to the tahini- so look to the edges of your cookies and pull as soon as they start to turn golden. Sprinkle with sea salt as they cool.

Notes:

I buy my tahini at Trader Joe’s which makes it super easy. Other fan favorites (from my Googling) seem to be Soom Foods and Al Arz.

What can I learn while I make this? Why you are tapping your cookies three times. It helps with forming perfect cookie shapes, dispersing the ingredients, and (allegedly) creating crinkly cookies but I haven’t experienced that last one. Truly though, the tap tap tap method + gently flattening my cookies before baking them have revolutionized the shape of my cookies.

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What if I want to make cookies but not these?

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Say hello to salted dark chocolate chip tahini cookies 🍪 As I resume normal posting, I want to repeat something: just because this is a food blog, doesn’t mean it’s not run by humans for humans AND with the privilege and safe space to create and play with food. Not everyone has that. But we all should. These past few weeks I’ve been using the time I normally play with new recipes to reflect on this privilege. To read, learn, listen, and start to build lifelong habits to be an informed, actionable ally. Food is an amazing way to bring people together. As you share a meal with a friend, a recipe with a loved one far away, or a Zoom cooking party, how can you check in on them- can you share what you’re learning and feeling in this time? What about throwing on a podcast or audiobook to learn more while you cook? As we cook, let’s listen, and bring people to the table (ourselves included) for some very important conversations🖤 Ingredients: (Makes 2 dozen good sized cookies) 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature ½ cup tahini 1 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour ½ tsp baking soda ½ tsp baking powder 1 tsp kosher salt 1 ¾ cups chocolate chips Directions: Get butter out and let sit so can be room temperature as you gather other ingredients. Beat butter, tahini, and sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon till fluffy. Scrape down sides, and add eggs and vanilla till incorporated. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl with a fork. Slowly pour into the tahini mixture, stirring as you go. Do not over stir. Let sit while you preheat the oven to 350F. Use your hands to form cookie balls, and put them farther apart than you’d expect (these spread!) on a baking sheet. Tap sheet three times on counter to flatten, then cook for about 15 minutes. Take out halfway through, tap on the counter 3 times, then put back in oven facing the opposite way. These are going to be lighter cookie colors due to the tahini- so look to the edges of your cookies and pull as soon as they start to turn golden. Sprinkle with sea salt as they cool.

A post shared by The Carmel Kama'aina (@carmelkamaaina) on Jun 14, 2020 at 12:00pm PDT