Black Sesame Cookies
Nutty, toasty, and lightly sweet, these cookies have a rich black sesame flavor with a buttery texture. They’re simple to make and perfect for snacking with tea or coffee.
Ingredients
- Black sesame seeds
- Granulated sugar
- Toasted sesame oil
- Unsalted butter
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- All purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Kosher salt
- (Optional) coarsely chopped dark chocolate chunks create pools of melted chocolate and pair well with the nutty flavor of black sesame. Adding them basically creates a black sesame chocolate chip cookie!
Instructions
- To the bowl of a food processor (or a blender / spice grinder), add the black sesame seeds and the sugar. Process until sesame seeds are finely ground and sugar mixture has turned a deep grey color. Do not over process or seeds will begin to warm and release oils.
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the butter and sesame seed / sugar mixture. Cream on medium speed until well blended. Add sesame oil and beat until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add the egg and vanilla, and mix until fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix at low speed until flour is just incorporated. Over mixing creates tougher cookies.
- If adding optional chocolate chips or chunks, fold them in with a spatula.
- Using a cookie scoop (I use a 1.5 Tablespoon / Size 40 scoop), portion the dough into balls. Roll in granulated sugar and place 8 at a time on a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle each with a pinch of black sesame seeds and top with a chocolate chunk, if using.
- Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177° Celsius, Gas mark 4) on center rack of oven for 8-9 minutes. If you want round cookies, immediately place a circular cookie cutter or an upside down drinking glass around each cookie and move it in circles to push the cookies into shape. They'll look slightly underdone, and will deflate a bit and continue to cook and firm up as they cool on the baking sheet.
Source: The Floured Table
Good Recipe Sites
- The Floured Table: This is the site I used as a source for the above information. The layout of it is clean and easy to follow with lots of sample images to help guide viewers through each step of the baking process. Additionally, I think it's helpful that there's a button for viewers to click on to immediately jump to the recipe part. There's also links for viewers to click on to jump to different sections in the overall post (e.g. ingredients, instructions, etc.)
- Cooking Therapy: This site is very similar to the first one in the sense that it's clean and also easy to follow. It contains many of the same elements I mentioned above -- lots of pictures throughout and a button for viewers to jump to the recipe right away. Something else I like about this site is that it includes additional tips to help people make the perfect cookie such as having to be careful about over-mixing, why it's important to rest the dough, etc.
- Just One Cookbook: Again, this site has all of the same elements as the other two above. Some extra things that stand out to me is that it introduces viewers to the cultural ties black sesame seeds have to Japan and, in the recipe part, there's buttons to let viewers toggle between customary units and metrics units. There's also buttons for if viewers want to double or triple the original serving size.
Non-Recipe Sites
- Nike: This website has a very sleek, minimalistic design with using white, grey, and black as the main colors. The imagery on the landing page is also very eye-catching and the layout is very symmetrical, which I like.
- Stripe: I love the color gradient thing that's happening on the landing page. The scrolling animations are also really smooth and super well-engineered.
- Canva: Nice use of colors once again. It has a user-friendly interface and makes good use of grids for images.
