Melt in your mouth tahini cookies with a soft date center.
I was recently on vacation visiting my in laws in Sofia, Bulgaria and you know I spent a lot of my time bakery-hopping. My favorites were what Gavril called the “bio stores” bakery/cafes that sell all the organic health foods (and random American stuff like Clif Bars for whatever reason) and make these awesome vegan treats. You may have seen these in my insta stories.
In a little square in downtown Sofia there are two of these shops one next to the other. One of them had the yummiest and largest (seriously as big as my palm) vegan cookies. My absolute favorite was their “Dangerous Einkorn Cookie” made with einkorn flour and a yummy “date jam” filling.
Of course I put this bakespiration in my back pocket and you know I started hacking away in my kitchen as soon as I got back. I wasn’t about to go searching high and low for einkorn flour so I gave my Dangerous cookies another one of my favorite flavors: TAHINI.
Oh my yum. These cookies are our current favorite. We’ve been munching on them breakfast lunch and dessert. Whether you flatten them or not, or sprinkle them with sea salt or sesame is completely up to you (I did half and half of course)…
Let me know if you give these a try!
Dangerous Tahini Cookies
Equipment
- food processor or blender
Ingredients
Cookie dough
- 1 flax egg sub beaten egg, or 3 tbsp mashed banana
- 1/4 cup tahini, or other nut/seed butter (56 g)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted (30 g)
- 2 tbsp maple syrup (42 g)
- 1 cup flour (120 g) gf all purpose if desired
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- pinch of cinnamon (optional)
Filling
- 1/2 cup medjool dates (80 g) sub other dried fruit
- 1/4 cup hazelnuts, or other nuts/seeds (30 g)
Instructions
- Soak your dates in hot water at least 30 min if they're hard. Preheat oven to 350F and line a cookie sheet with parchment.
- In a bowl mix together tahini, oil, maple syrup, flax egg. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon.
- Combine the two and form the cookie dough. Depending on the consistency of your nut/seed butter you may not need all of the dry mix. If the dough gets too crumbly, add a drop of water to combine it back together. Refrigerate the dough while making the filling.
- To make the filling, blend the hazelnuts until meal-like in a food processor. Add the soft dates and blend some more to form a crumbly filling.
- Grab heaping teaspoons (10g per cookie) and form balls between your palms. Set aside (refrigerating or freezing helps). Take heaping tablespoons of cookie dough, roll into a ball and wrap it around a ball of filling. Repeat.
- You can gently press on parchment paper to flatten them if you like, I like rounds and flats equally.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden. The less you bake the softer they will be.
- Store any leftovers in room temp in an airtight container that’s not completely sealed so they keep their crisp (or freeze them). Enjoy!!
Notes
- To make a flax egg, stir together 1 tbsp (7 g) flax seed meal and 3 tbsp water and let it sit and thicken for 5 minutes.
- I’ve tested the recipe with banana for egg and peanut butter for tahini and it worked beautifully (no banana taste, it’s such a small amount). Feel free to get creative with this!
Is there any way to make the filling without a food processor or blender? For example, if I finely chop the dates and hazelnuts with a knife, would the consistency be okay?
I doubt it honestly! You would have to chop really fine to make it hold together. It would still be a tasty cookie if you folded the chopped nuts and fruit into the batter though! 😊❤️