Miso Tahini Cookies
Let’s be honest, this is a sophisticated, grown-up cookie. We bake a lot around my house, mostly for the kids but every once in a while I have a sweet tooth as well and most of what we bake at my house does not fall into my dietary wheelhouse. We bake gluten-free, I need grain-free, we bake using maple syrup or organic cane sugar, I am limited to monk fruit, chicory root and sometimes a touch of coconut sugar, and I mean the minimum. I wanted a peanut butter type cookie, and you guessed it, I can’t eat peanuts either but I was craving a rich, creamy nutty tasting cooking that was easy to make. I am obsessed with tahini at the moment, so I looked up tahini cookies online and I found thebeamingbaker.com and her Big Sesame Cookies recipe. It looked awesome, I baked some up, and they tasted delicious with great texture. But I wanted a cookie that had the creaminess of tahini AND a salty umami flavor from miso. I am also currently obsessed with miso because of it’s umami taste it brings to the table as well as for it’s myriad health benefits, cancer fighting is one of them. I love Miso Master’s mellow white miso for baking, dressing and sauces. So I adapted the recipe to incorporate the miso as well as replaced half the coconut sugar with monk fruit sweetener to service my sugar restrictions as well as adjusted a couple other ingredients to fit my taste palate. I also did a couple of variations for fun including one cookie I dipped half of the cookie in melted sugar free vegan chocolate chips and then sprinkled them with flaky sea salt and another version which substituted the tahini for black sesame paste ( find it here) and then added cut up crystalized ginger into the recipe. Both delish. Thank you Demeter of The Beaming Baker for a perfect foundational recipe to play with. The cookies are vegan, grain-free and low sugar. They are perfectly sweet and boy do they hit the spot. My husband loves them served with a cappuccino, I love them with a cup of tea, any tea.
Makes 12 cookies / Prep time 25-30 minutes (depending on the variation) / Bake time 12 minutes / Total time 27-32 minutes
Gather
1/2 cup / 120 g raw or toasted tahini
1/2 cup / 125 g super creamy almond butter ( I use Barney Butter Bare Smooth Almond Butter, it’s super smooth and creamy and no added sugar)
1 tablespoon / 14.3 g vegan butter, softened (I use meltorganic.com)
1 tablespoon / 14.3 g mellow white miso ( I use misomaster.com)
1 flax egg replacer (1 tablespoon/14.3 g flax meal mixed with 3 tablespoons/ 44.4 ml water, allow to sit for 10-12 minutes before using)
1 teaspoon / 4.93 ml vanilla extract
1/8 cup /18 g plus 1 tablespoon Monk fruit sweetener
1/8 cup/ 22g coconut sugar
2 tablespoons / 28.3 g coconut flour
For the sesame seed coating:
1/8 teaspoon/ .43 g black sesame seeds
1/8 teaspoon/ .43 g unhealed white sesame seeds
Make
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl add the first 8 ingredients, mix well with a spatula, fold in the coconut flour and and mix till well incorporated.
Place the black and white sesame seeds into a shallow bowl and stir 3-4 times. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop and roll the dough into balls. Drop the balls into the bowl of sesame seeds. Roll and press the dough balls until they are completely covered in the black and white sesame seeds.
Place the cookie dough balls onto the baking sheet, and space them evenly apart, giving the cookie dough room to spread out. With the palm of your hand or a large spoon, gently flatten the cookies. Sometimes when you spread out the dough there are some cracks, you can close the cracks if you like with your finger tips.
Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to sit on the baking sheet for 15 minutes and then gently transfer the cookies with a a large spatula to a cooling rack , and allow the cookies to cool another 25 minutes. These cookies are fragile so follow these last steps.
Can be stored in an airtight container for 7-10 days. Not necessary to refrigerate.
Variation 1
Chocolate Covered Miso Tahini Cookies with Flaky Salt
Gather
1/4 cup white sesame seeds
1/2 cup sugar free vegan bittersweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt
Make the cookie recipe above but in lieu of black and white sesame seeds, only dip the dough in the white ones.
After the cookies have cooled down, melt the chocolate chips in a small sauce pan over a low flame, stirring constantly until the chips have melted evenly.
Dip half of each cookie once into the melted chocolate and place onto a large plate or tray covered in parchment paper and then immediately place a desired pinch of the salt onto the chocolate side. Once all 12 cookies have been coated with chocolate and sprinkled with salt, transfer the plate into the fridge for 10-15 minutes until the chocolate is set. Be sure to store out of the sun or a warm place as the chocolate will melt again.
Variation 2
Miso Black Sesame Cookies with Crystalized Ginger
Gather
1/2 cup black sesame paste
1/8 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 crystalized ginger, finely chopped
1/4 cup white sesame seeds
Make
Follow the instructions above but replace the raw or roasted tahini with the black sesame paste. And then incorporate the grated ginger and the finely chopped crystalized ginger.
Then coat the cookies into the white sesame seeds. You can use the black and white but I just loved how the charcoal gray color of the black sesame paste peaked through the white seeds as you can see in the picture. Of course be creative with how you coat your cookie dough.
Adapted from the Big Sesame Tahini Cookie from thebeamingbaker.com by Katherine Howell and Anna Getty of The Amalgam Kitchen
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