Tahini Cookies are tender and melting; almost shortbread-ish if it weren’t for the sesame seeds that pop and crackle between your teeth. They are sweet with sugar and honey but somehow savoury and salty too. A generous proportion of tahini lends a warm, spicy richness that is mysterious and yet totally comforting. They are liable to crumble a little with each bite, but you will find that your tongue chases each escaping fragment and that your fingertips, indented with sesame seeds, will be licked, rather than brushed, clean. 

I wrote about Tahini Cookies over three years ago when I first tried them, but at the time I simply linked to the blog where I had found the recipe. Since then, I have made them many times. I’ve taken them to potluck dinners and garden parties, and shared them frequently with colleagues at work. I once made a triple batch for a fundraising bake sale where they were one of the first items to sell out. Small bags of cookies have found their way into friend’s handbags or been stashed outside neighbour’s front doors. Colin has been known to raid the biscuit tin to take samples to his friends. 

This generosity originates in the conviction that Tahini Cookies are good, and that such goodness must be shared – hence this post, Round Two for the promotion of Tahini Cookies. I must confess that I’m not entirely altruistic though. For every one I’ve given away, I’ve probably eaten five or six myself.

Tahini Cookies look humble and unassuming. There’s no flash, no wow; they’re simply small, brown and rustic – until you eat one. For those used to seeing tahini in savoury iterations only, the thought of sweet tahini can be somewhat distasteful. However, think halva; the sweet, sesame confection that is made with tahini. When fresh, the cookies have a texture that is reminiscent of halva.

Tahini Cookies are delicious served with coffee, but crumble them over vanilla ice cream and you will find yourself in heaven as the warm, salty-sweet cookie melds with cold, vanilla creaminess. If you want to win friends, then these cookies are for you. Each time I make them, I am asked for the recipe, and if there is ever a way to objectively quantify the success of cooking, then this could be it.

I am by no means the first to wax lyrical about the joys of tahini and tahini cookies. Ailsa Ross considered tahini (including tahini cookies) to be the highlight of her kibbutz experience. Annelies Zijderveld writes of tahini that “it’s not often that I give myself over to an ingredient so completely” and of tahini cookies, that “they will be the first cookies to be eaten up even when a chocolate cookie is also on the plate”. Tahini cookies also inspired Annelies to write this stellar poem and Edwina Shaw has used Tahini Cookies to overcome procrastination. It is strange to think that a brown, sludgy paste could inspire such intense emotions, but there it is. Make these cookies and taste for yourself.