I hope you all are having a wonderful Friday filled with love and cookies. Today now only do I have incredible tahini cookies for you, but some updates from me!
First: we’re in the process of beginning our logo and brand redesign work for Ambitious Kitchen. That’s right, in 2018 Ambitious Kitchen will be transforming into an all-new, beautiful, easier to use website.
I’ve been wanting to do a redesign and dive deeper into Ambitious Kitchen for a while and so I finally decided it was time. We’ll launch in Feb 2018 (fingers crossed). The look and feel will be different, but I’ll still be here with delicious recipes.
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In other news, Tony and I leave for our honeymoon next Saturday. We’re heading to Queensland & New South Wales, Australia and Kauai, Hawaii for just about 3 weeks. I’ll be popping in on the blog here and there, but mostly I’ll have everything scheduled ahead of time. WE CAN’T WAIT! Have you been to either?
Lastly, I leave you with my brown butter tahini cookies! This recipe is based off one of my favorite peanut butter cookie recipes, but I basically just subbed tahini for peanut butter & added a few twists.
Tahini is just ground sesame seeds, so it’s perfect for those with tree nut allergies. You can find it at most grocery stores, but often tahini is sold in the Mediterranean/middle eastern section or sometimes near the nut butters.
You can also buy it on Amazon here (it’s the brand I love to use & support).
These cookies are flavored with the nutty, caramel notes of brown butter, but also from the nuttiness of sesame seeds. They’re earthy, sweet and intense. I rolled them in sesame seeds before baking for the lovely crunch and flavor of toasted sesame.
Of course, I took them even further by dipping them in dark chocolate. It’s the perfect combination, and they’ll stand out at any party you go to.
I hope you get a chance to bake these up for your friends! If you do, let me know below in the comments and/or snap a photo and post it on Instagram using the hashtag #ambitiouskitchen!
More cookie recipes you’ll love:
Dank Coconut Oil Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Old Fashioned Iced Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies
The Best Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies You’ll Ever Eat
Healthier Flourless Monster Cookies
Salted Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Snickerdoodles
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125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Chocolate Dipped Brown Butter Tahini Cookies
Ingredients
- Wet ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- ½ cup tahini
- ½ tablespoon honey
- Dry ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- For rolling:
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- For topping
- 3.5 oz 70% dark chocolate bar, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will begin to foam. Make sure you whisk constantly during this process. After a couple of minutes, the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the saucepan. Continue to whisk and remove from heat as soon as the butter begins to brown and give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent burning. Set aside to cool for 5-10 minutes or until just warm enough to the touch.
- With an electric mixer, mix the brown butter and sugars until well combined, about 1 minute.
- Beat in the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, tahini and honey until combined.
- Add the dry ingredients slowly and beat on low speed just until combined.
- Roll cookies into tablespoon sized balls, then roll in sesame seeds (only if you’d like). Place on baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies begin to turn barely golden brown on the edges. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Once cookies have cooled off a bit, melt the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir constantly until chocolate melts, then transfer to a small bowl.
- Dip each cookie halfway into chocolate, then place onto parchment or wax paper. The chocolate should set up within 30 minutes, but if you want to speed up the process, just place the baking sheet in the fridge for about 5 minutes. Cookies will keep for 3-5 days if stored in an airtight container.
The tahini adds the perfect nutty flavor to these yummy cookies!!! You can make them sweeter (or not) by how sweet of a chocolate you choose. I prefer my deserts to be less sweet and these are perfect for me.
Absolutely! These are great for customizing with the chocolate 🙂 glad you love them!
Love these cookies for anytime of the year!
I just made these but accidentally put 1/2 CUP of honey instead of a 1/2 TBLS 🤦🏻♀️ Oops! I decided to keep going since I had already browned the butter and used up all my tahini. They came out better than I expected! Very sweet, flat and very chewy. I did add another 1/4 cup of flour too. Can’t wait to try them again! But next time I’ll pay more attention, lol
Glad they still worked out regardless! You’ll love them with the regular recipe, too 🙂
Made these over the holidays with my family and everyone loved them!
I’m so glad! Love these ones 🙂
Tahini on cookies sound delicious! I am really excited to see your blog’s transformation. It looks fantastic ow, so I can’t imagine it being better! 😀
They are! I can’t wait for you to see it 🙂
Hi Monique,
I’ve been a long-time fan of your blog. I’m thrilled to hear you’re going to Kaua’i! My husband and I eloped and got married there in 2013. We’ve been back every winter since, to celebrate our anniversary. We stay on an organic farm and spend our days hiking, walking on secluded beaches, lifting weights, and cooking with amazing local produce from the farm. Feel free to email if you want tips, we know the island super well and can make some goodbyes suggestions that might be right up your alley!
Hi Lee! That is incredible! It sounds like a dream down there. I’ll be sure to send you a note for any of our last-minute questions 🙂 Thanks so much!
Kauai is the best Hawaiian island! The Kalalau trail is awesome- we just did the 4 mile roundtrip hike to the beach and it was so beautiful and worth it. The boat trips to the Napali coast give you amazing views, but they are very bumpy! There’s an outdoor company in Kauai where you can ride a tube through an old sugar cane plantation, which is pretty cool. And there are so many great restaurants and food options in Kauai! It’s the perfect place for a honeymoon.
That all sounds amazing! We’ll definitely be heading out for as many adventures as possible 🙂
I don’t use tahini in enough , but it looks brilliant in cookies!
It’s so delicious!!
I’ve been a fan of tahini since I was a kid (thanks to tahini and jelly sandwiches – lol) so these are definitely going to be made soon. Yum!
Oh my gosh I’ll have to try a tahini + jam sandwich! Hope you love these 🙂
This looks AMAZING Monique. How many cookies does it make? I’m thinking of changing my holiday gift baking plans!!!
Also, I love love love oatmeal cookies for their texture– do you think I could do part whole wheat flour part oats/oat flour for these? If yes, what ratio would you recommend?
Thank you for sharing your amazing cookies with the world 🙂
Thank you! This recipe should make about 12 cookies. I haven’t tried using alternative flours in here, so I’m not exactly sure how it will change the texture and bake time (baking is such a science!) If you do try it, let me know how it goes 🙂 Enjoy!
Tahini and Chocolate is my current favorite combination!
Isn’t it the best?!