I might be on a bit of a roll with the tahini baked goods. After making two different types of chocolate chip cookies with tahini (these and these), I decided to try a recipe that's been in the back of my mind for two years, ever since I first got a copy of Sweet -- Ottolenghi's Tahini and Halva Brownies. This is one of the best known recipes from the cookbook, but I have purposely avoided making it until now. An acquaintance of mine -- who is a very skilled baker -- baked a batch of these brownies when the cookbook first came out and he gave some to me. I didn't care for them. Mostly, it was the super squishy texture that I found unappealing. Plus, I'm not particularly a fan of halva, so I wasn't in a rush to try the recipe for myself. But now that I keep tahini in the house, I decided that it was finally time to make the brownies.
Step one was that I had to find some halva. Joyva brand halva is pretty widely available around here (even in regular supermarkets) in either bars or cans, but when I looked at the ingredient list and saw that it includes palm oil, I decided to pass. Instead, I bought some Ziyad marble halva from Turkey (I got marble because the foreign food aisle at Harris Teeter only offered pistachio and marble halva). With halva and tahini in hand, the recipe comes together quickly.
You whisk eggs and sugar until pale and creamy; add a mixture of melted and cooled butter and dark chocolate; fold in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, and salt); and incorporate pieces of halva. You spread the batter into a parchment-lined pan, drop spoonfuls of tahini on top, and use a toothpick to swirl the tahini into the brownie batter before baking.
I was quite worried about getting the baking time right for these brownies. The recipe says that you should use either a 23cm (9-inch) square pan, or a 20cm x 30cm pan (8-inches by 12-inches). I have the latter, but I decided to use an 8-inch square pan. So I knew I would probably need to increase the baking time a bit to account for the increased thickness of my brownies. But the timing already seemed like it would be pretty iffy. The recipe headnote warns that "In order to achieve the perfect balance of cakey and gooey -- that sweet spot all brownie recipes should hit -- the cooking time is crucial. It will vary by a minute or two between different ovens... so keep a close eye on them." Also, the recipe says that you should take the brownies out of the oven when "the middle has a slight wobble and it is gooey inside" -- which seemed like a recipe for making undercooked brownies. The recipe specifies a baking time of 22-25 minutes and I baked my 8-inch square pan for 27 minutes. Even then, the wobbliness of the brownies scared me a little, so I turned off the oven and left the pan in the oven for two minutes more.
I let the brownies cool completely in the pan before cutting them. When I made the first cut I was dismayed to see a glistening wet interior. The brownies looked quite undercooked and I decided to put the pan in the fridge overnight to see what would happen. The following morning I finished cutting the brownies and the interior no longer looked wet. When I took a taste I was astonished at how good the brownies were. They had a perfectly creamy texture that reminded me of The Baked Brownie. Brownie texture is generally considered to fall somewhere along a spectrum between cakey and fudgy. I'm not sure where exactly creamy brownies fall along that continuum, or if creaminess is orthogonal to the cakey-fudgy axis. All I know is that I love a creamy brownie. The texture is decadent without being overwhelming.
I cut the pan of brownies into sixteen squares and I really liked the tall proportions of each piece. I'm glad I used an 8-inch square pan. In the photo above, the light streaks you can see along the sides of the brownies are the bits of halva. I loved these brownies. Not only were they intensely chocolatey and smooth, but the halva and tahini added extra richness.
I liked these brownies so much that I made the recipe a second time, this time in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. A 9-inch by 13-inch pan has 1.8 times the volume of an 8-inch square pan, so I multiplied the recipe by 1.75; the original recipe calls for four eggs and all of the ingredient quantities are provided in metric weights in my British version of the cookbook, so scaling up the recipe wasn't difficult. I baked the larger pan for 29 minutes, followed by another two minutes in the oven after I turned it off. I chilled the brownies before cutting them and was rewarded with the same creamy texture. For the second batch, I used some Matis brand chocolate halva from Greece that I bought at a Mediterranean market in Dupont Circle, and I didn't notice any difference in the end product from using a different type of halva.
I definitely want to put this recipe into my regular rotation of brownie recipes. It's such a standout, and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to try it!
Recipe: "Tahini and Halva Brownies" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. There are several versions of this recipe available online, but I haven't been able to find one that is identical to the one printed in the British version of the cookbook that I own; even the version on the Ottolenghi website is different. However, this version from The Splendid Table is the closest.
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Step one was that I had to find some halva. Joyva brand halva is pretty widely available around here (even in regular supermarkets) in either bars or cans, but when I looked at the ingredient list and saw that it includes palm oil, I decided to pass. Instead, I bought some Ziyad marble halva from Turkey (I got marble because the foreign food aisle at Harris Teeter only offered pistachio and marble halva). With halva and tahini in hand, the recipe comes together quickly.
You whisk eggs and sugar until pale and creamy; add a mixture of melted and cooled butter and dark chocolate; fold in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, and salt); and incorporate pieces of halva. You spread the batter into a parchment-lined pan, drop spoonfuls of tahini on top, and use a toothpick to swirl the tahini into the brownie batter before baking.
I let the brownies cool completely in the pan before cutting them. When I made the first cut I was dismayed to see a glistening wet interior. The brownies looked quite undercooked and I decided to put the pan in the fridge overnight to see what would happen. The following morning I finished cutting the brownies and the interior no longer looked wet. When I took a taste I was astonished at how good the brownies were. They had a perfectly creamy texture that reminded me of The Baked Brownie. Brownie texture is generally considered to fall somewhere along a spectrum between cakey and fudgy. I'm not sure where exactly creamy brownies fall along that continuum, or if creaminess is orthogonal to the cakey-fudgy axis. All I know is that I love a creamy brownie. The texture is decadent without being overwhelming.
I cut the pan of brownies into sixteen squares and I really liked the tall proportions of each piece. I'm glad I used an 8-inch square pan. In the photo above, the light streaks you can see along the sides of the brownies are the bits of halva. I loved these brownies. Not only were they intensely chocolatey and smooth, but the halva and tahini added extra richness.
I liked these brownies so much that I made the recipe a second time, this time in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. A 9-inch by 13-inch pan has 1.8 times the volume of an 8-inch square pan, so I multiplied the recipe by 1.75; the original recipe calls for four eggs and all of the ingredient quantities are provided in metric weights in my British version of the cookbook, so scaling up the recipe wasn't difficult. I baked the larger pan for 29 minutes, followed by another two minutes in the oven after I turned it off. I chilled the brownies before cutting them and was rewarded with the same creamy texture. For the second batch, I used some Matis brand chocolate halva from Greece that I bought at a Mediterranean market in Dupont Circle, and I didn't notice any difference in the end product from using a different type of halva.
I definitely want to put this recipe into my regular rotation of brownie recipes. It's such a standout, and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to try it!
Recipe: "Tahini and Halva Brownies" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. There are several versions of this recipe available online, but I haven't been able to find one that is identical to the one printed in the British version of the cookbook that I own; even the version on the Ottolenghi website is different. However, this version from The Splendid Table is the closest.
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