The first recipes in Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy cookbook are sticks, i.e., thin, crisp cookies that are formed as a loaf, chilled, sliced, and baked in long, slender shapes. I've made Medrich's Hazelnut Sticks and Coconut Sticks and both are exceptional. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to trying her Sesame Sticks recipe.
You can make the recipe by hand or in a food processor; I used the food processor. I combined flour, sugar, toasted sesame seeds, almond flour, and salt; pulsed in cold, cubed butter; drizzled over cold water and vanilla; and pulsed the dough formed damp crumbs that stuck together when pressed. You're supposed to press the dough into a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan, but I made a double batch and pressed it into a 9-inch square pan. I chilled the dough overnight.
The following day, I cut the square of dough in half to get two 9-inch by 4.5-inch blocks of dough, and then sliced each block into very thin slices. I got 100 cookies from my double batch. While I tried to cut the slices to a uniform thickness, many ended up slightly uneven. As a result, they did not brown evenly, and the edges in particular were prone to getting very dark. They also did not maintain a neat rectangle shape as they baked, and came out looking somewhat rustic.
I loved these cookies so much. They were very crisp, light, and had extra flavorful, caramelized bottoms. The cookies bordered on being savory and seemed almost like a cross between a cracker and a cookie; the well-salted toasted sesame flavor made me think of the Asian grocery snack food aisle. I couldn't taste the almond, but I found these cookies to be absolutely addictive. It's a good thing this recipe produces so many cookies, because it's very tempting to eat them by the handful!
Recipe: "Sesame Sticks" from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich, recipe available here from King Arthur Flour.
Previous Posts:
- "Wafer Thin Loveliness: Hazelnut Sticks," June 25, 2015.
- "Two for Tea: Pistachio Biscotti Thins and Coconut Sticks," April 3, 2016.
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