At the very end of February, Tom and I enjoyed a lovely weekend in New York City. Even though we were obviously aware of the novel coronavirus at the time, life still seemed normal and we felt carefree. We rode the subway, ate at restaurants, met up with friends, and walked around the city without worry. We also paid our first (very overdue) visit to Seed + Mill, a shop in Chelsea Market that sells halva and tahini. I had heard of Seed + Mill but had never tried their products before -- they only have the one physical store in NYC (although you can also order online). The guy who was working at the counter when we stopped by was very helpful and let us sample a bunch of different halva varieties, all of which were so good that I could hardly believe it. I have said in the past that I don't like halva, but I've never had freshly-made halva before. What we tasted at Seed + Mill is an entirely different product than what I've been buying in the international aisle of grocery stores. It turns out that I love halva after all -- just not supermarket halva. Tom and I left with a bag packed with a jar of tahini and four different flavors of halva.
I had been saving my precious jar of Seed + Mill tahini for a special baking project. But then I thought, hey, it's a pandemic and I might as well just break out the good stuff... what else am I waiting for? I decided to use it in Danielle Oron's recipe for Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies that was printed in The New York Times. I have previously tried a chocolate chip cookie recipe that replaced all of the butter with tahini, but Oron's recipe has both butter and tahini.
The process for making the dough is pretty much the same as for a normal chocolate chip cookie, except for the addition of tahini and the need to refrigerate the dough before baking. You cream room temperature butter with sugar and tahini until light and fluffy; add an egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt); and fold in chocolate chunks. For the chocolate, I used Scarffen Berger 62% petite squares that I put in a Ziploc bag and bashed with a rolling pin. Petite squares are quite thin (each one weighs only five grams), so they're easy to break up with brute force -- but I didn't want to bash the chocolate too much because then you risk tearing the plastic bag. So I ended up with some oversized flat pieces of chocolate in the cookies.
After chilling the dough for 24 hours, I scooped out the dough with a #30 scoop and got 20 cookies from a batch. I baked them and sprinkled on Maldon salt while they were hot from the oven. As it turns out, my lazy chocolate bashing tactic worked out great, because I loved the huge puddles of chocolate in many of the cookies.
This cookie is definitely better than the cookie I made before with all tahini and no butter. It's pretty close to the classic flavor of a regular chocolate chip cookie, except with a noticeable, but subtle, touch of sesame. There's nothing not to like about these cookies -- they were substantial, had a chewy texture, nicely balanced savory and sweet, and the big chocolate puddles were the bomb. The Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie remains my favorite of all time, but I would never turn down one of these. And I wouldn't hesitate to make them again -- the cookies were a good return on investment for my special tahini supply!
Recipe: "Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies" from Danielle Oron, from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
I had been saving my precious jar of Seed + Mill tahini for a special baking project. But then I thought, hey, it's a pandemic and I might as well just break out the good stuff... what else am I waiting for? I decided to use it in Danielle Oron's recipe for Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies that was printed in The New York Times. I have previously tried a chocolate chip cookie recipe that replaced all of the butter with tahini, but Oron's recipe has both butter and tahini.
The process for making the dough is pretty much the same as for a normal chocolate chip cookie, except for the addition of tahini and the need to refrigerate the dough before baking. You cream room temperature butter with sugar and tahini until light and fluffy; add an egg, egg yolk, and vanilla; add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt); and fold in chocolate chunks. For the chocolate, I used Scarffen Berger 62% petite squares that I put in a Ziploc bag and bashed with a rolling pin. Petite squares are quite thin (each one weighs only five grams), so they're easy to break up with brute force -- but I didn't want to bash the chocolate too much because then you risk tearing the plastic bag. So I ended up with some oversized flat pieces of chocolate in the cookies.
This cookie is definitely better than the cookie I made before with all tahini and no butter. It's pretty close to the classic flavor of a regular chocolate chip cookie, except with a noticeable, but subtle, touch of sesame. There's nothing not to like about these cookies -- they were substantial, had a chewy texture, nicely balanced savory and sweet, and the big chocolate puddles were the bomb. The Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie remains my favorite of all time, but I would never turn down one of these. And I wouldn't hesitate to make them again -- the cookies were a good return on investment for my special tahini supply!
Recipe: "Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies" from Danielle Oron, from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
- "I'll Stick to the Original: Middle Eastern Millionaire's Shortbread," October 31, 2019.
- "Too Delicate for Their Own Good?: Tahini Shortbread Cookies," October 17, 2019.
- "Creamy and Dreamy: Tahini and Halva Brownies," September 9, 2019.
- "Have Tahini, Will Bake: Fig, Tahini, and Milk Chocolate Cookies," August 30, 2019.
- "Who Needs Butter to Bake Cookies?: New-Fashioned Chocolate Chip Cookies with All Tahini and No Butter," July 21, 2019.
Comments