A time for love and a time for cookies

I never really understood the love people had for cookies – until now. When I was little I truly could not understand the obsession that my friends had with cookies, either homemade or store- bought. Moms baked (a lot) or they stacked cupboards with all kinds of cookies from oreos to chips ahoy to teddy grahams (remember those?). Every time I went over to people’s homes snack time meant cookies. Even at school when someone wanted something sweet to eat they would bring out their little snack pack of cookies. They even left Santa Claus milk and cookies! I think this love affair is a very North American thing. Now that I’m not around all those cookie- obsessed folks, I have had the chance to develop a love of cookies.

Now I adore them – not the oreo or (I hate to say it) tim tam (sorry friends!) kind – but more the type of cookies that have interesting, sometimes unusual ingredients. Here is an adapted recipe for gluten free chocolate cookies. I used tahini in the cookies as well. Tahini is a smooth, nutty paste made from sesame seeds. It’s used a lot in Middle-Eastern cooking and often you find it used in savoury dishes like hummus. I use it like a peanut butter in both sweet and salty dishes. Enjoy.

Chocolate and tahini cookies (gluten free but you can substitute all-purpose/wholemeal flour)
(makes about 12 cookies)
adapted from savoury sweet life recipe for bittersweet chocolate decadence cookies

¼ cup gluten-free flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon organic unhulled tahini
2 large organic eggs
¼ cup molasses and/or demerara sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½  cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.  In a small bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together, set aside.  In order to melt chocolate, place chocolate and butter in a bowl and melt it in a bain-marie (a double boiler). To do this, set the bowl on top of a pot of simmering water (don’t let the bottom of bowl touch water and don’t not leave on for a long time, just until it melts). Once melted remove and then in another bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, and vanilla and set the bowl over the same pot of simmering water. Continue to whisk everything until the mixture is lukewarm.

Making sure that each mixture is not too hot, combine the two carefully. At this point, add in the tahini and mix. Add the flour with salt and baking powder. This batter will look like thick cake batter.  Don’t worry they will look and taste like cookies once you’re done baking them. Scoop dough with tablespoon onto silicon or parchment sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes. The outside might look dry but it’ll be moist and gooey on the inside. Yum.