Tahini, Almond and Honey Cookies

Hello, dear readers! It has been a while. I was recently ill for about a week and didn't quite have the energy to blog. On top of that, I think I underestimated how long it would take for me to settle into the new term at work. Quite frankly, this summer term has had me whipped so far! But all is not lost, and I am back today with a new post.

Remember how I mentioned how I often have things sitting around in the pantry (I know, I know, terrible habit)? Well, I've had a jar of tahini sitting in the cupboard for a while now. I originally bought it to make hoummus, but my versions never tasted quite as good as the restaurant kind, so I never really put it to good use. But I'm trying use up things before buying more ingredients, mainly because we really don't have any space left in out kitchen cupboards! So I racked my brain and the internet for tahini recipes. Initially I saw quite a few savoury recipes, but then I came across quite a few tahini cookie recipes. At first I thought it was a bit weird sounding. In my head, I have come to associate tahini with hoummous, so when I heard of tahini cookies, I just kept thinking of hoummous flavoured cookies. Hardly appealing.

But I realised that, you know, it's just like a sesame version of peanut butter, which I've already used to make cookies. And then I remembered eating sesame snaps as a kid, which were basically shards of seasame brittle. So I thought, what they hey, let's try them out!

With all that drama, you can imagine my surprise when the cookies actually turned rather yummy in the end. Soft, with a slightly cakey texture, these subtly nutty cookies have a fudgey taste that comes from the use of brown sugar and honey. 

You could make these cookies completely gluten free by only using almond flour, however, I decided to use a mix of almond and all purpose flour. 

I adapted this recipe by kind of amalgamating recipes from Umm Hamza at Halal Home Cooking and An Edible Mosaic. 

Tahini, Almond and Honey Cookies

Serves: 12

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 mins

by Abida at The Red Lychee

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup tahini
2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg whisked
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
Handful of sesame seeds (optional)

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 180C/350F and grease and line a cookie sheet.

2) Sift together flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and ground almonds in a bowl. 

3) In a separate bowl, cream together tahini and brown sugar. Add in honey, vanilla and egg and mix together until well combined and smooth. 

4) Slowly add in the dry ingredients to the tahini mixture. Gently fold mixture together until combined. Leave batter to rest for a few minutes. 

5) Spoon a tablespoon at a time onto the cookie sheet, making sure to leave space to allow for the cookies to expand as they bake. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sesame seeds. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies are lightly golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool before serving.