Because I had some black sesame paste left over after making Joanne Chang's Tahini-Black Sesame Spiral Shortbreads, I decided to try using it in Edd Kimber's recipe for Black and White Tahini Cookies. As you would surmise from the recipe name, the cookies call for black tahini, which is not exactly the same thing as the Asian black sesame paste that I had. But I figured that it should be close enough.
There's a lot going on in these cookies. The dough is made from a mixture of wheat flour and rye flour, and the cookies are filled with a nugget of white chocolate ganache. I made the ganache first since it needs time to chill; it's simply a mixture of heavy cream and white chocolate (I used Cacao Barry Zéphyr). I decided to skip the cardamom listed as an optional ingredient because I wanted to keep the flavors as simple as possible. I chilled the ganache until it was firm enough to scoop and then portioned it out into small flat discs.
For the cookie dough, I creamed room temperature butter with granulated sugar, brown sugar, and the black sesame paste; added eggs and vanilla; and incorporated the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, rye flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt). I used a #30 scoop to portion out the dough, getting 19 cookies from a batch. I chilled the scoops of dough for several hours before baking.
When I was ready to bake, I flattened out each piece of dough, wrapped a disc of ganache inside, and rolled each cookie in sesame seeds before putting it on a parchment-lined pan to bake. While I thought I had done a good job of neatly encasing the ganache inside each cookie, most of the cookies ended up cracking on top with ganache spilling out, as you can see in the photo above. I really liked the sesame flavor of these cookies, but I wasn't a fan of the soft texture; I was glad that at least the sesame seeds added a bit of texture. I generally prefer a chewy or crisp cookie. Also, I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a distinct core of white chocolate filling inside. Instead, the white chocolate seemed to disappear into the batter and it wasn't detectable as a distinct flavor. I wonder if using white chocolate pistoles might provide a more interesting (and less laborious) result.
Recipe: "Black and White Tahini Cookies" by Edd Kimber, from Olive Magazine.
There's a lot going on in these cookies. The dough is made from a mixture of wheat flour and rye flour, and the cookies are filled with a nugget of white chocolate ganache. I made the ganache first since it needs time to chill; it's simply a mixture of heavy cream and white chocolate (I used Cacao Barry Zéphyr). I decided to skip the cardamom listed as an optional ingredient because I wanted to keep the flavors as simple as possible. I chilled the ganache until it was firm enough to scoop and then portioned it out into small flat discs.
For the cookie dough, I creamed room temperature butter with granulated sugar, brown sugar, and the black sesame paste; added eggs and vanilla; and incorporated the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, rye flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt). I used a #30 scoop to portion out the dough, getting 19 cookies from a batch. I chilled the scoops of dough for several hours before baking.
Recipe: "Black and White Tahini Cookies" by Edd Kimber, from Olive Magazine.
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