Sesame Cookies

Now that I'm helping make desserts for Alpha, I've taken this opportunity to try out different recipes. There are other bakers on the team as well, so we try to coordinate with each other to make sure there's enough of a variety. Recently, it seems that everyone is into baking cakes, so this time I decided to try to make cookies.

So why did I pick to make sesame cookies? Well, sit tight! It's a bit of a story... the other day, some friends of mine were lamenting on the fact that they keep having to dye their hair to cover up the gray strands. This reminded me of my mom's friend who surprisingly had the opposite problem. She had a nice full set of milky white hair and was unhappy at the fact that there were black strands growing out. She concluded that it was because she had started drinking black sesame powder mixed with water (for health reasons). The sesame was turning her hair black again! Well I don't know if that was the real reason, but it did inspire me to make black sesame cookies. (Yes, I totally went off on a tangent with that... Sorry!)

Anyway in my usual fashion, I randomly searched for recipes online and came across one from Just One Cookbook. Some minor problems I ran into with the recipe is that I couldn't find almond meal... so the baking supply shop owner told me to just use ground almond. Also, I couldn't find "roasted" sesame seeds either, so I purchased "raw" sesame seeds and roasted them in the oven at 160°C for 5 minutes. Lastly... I totally blanked out and put the entire egg into the mixture instead of just the egg yolk (oops!) It seemed to work out fine... though I still thought the cookies were too sweet (even though I reduced the amount of sugar used).

Ingredients (makes around 40 cookies):

117g unsalted butter
160g plain flour
40g almond meal (or ground almonds)
80g sugar (I reduced to 75g sugar)
Pinch of salt
40g roasted sesame seeds (black, white or mixed)
1 egg yolk

Method:

1. Cut the butter into small cubes and keep them refrigerated until ready to use.
2. In the food processor, combine the flour, almond meal, sugar, and salt. If you don’t have a food processor, you can simply use a bowl to mix all the ingredients. 
3. If you want your sesame seeds to be fine texture, add them now to the mixture. If you prefer to keep the original shape of sesame seeds, add them with the egg yolk later.
4. Take out the butter from the refrigerator and mix together. If you use a regular bowl to mix, use a dough/pastry blender to combine the butter into the dry ingredients. 
5. Lastly add egg yolk.
6. If the food processor is small (like mine) and it doesn’t look like it’s mixed completely, take it out and mix well with a silicone spatula. 
7. Form the dough into a ball and cut in half.  
8. Roll it to a log approximately 2” across. For me it’s easier to work when the dough is wrapped in plastic wrap. 
9. Wrap the logs tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.  
10. Preheat the oven to 350°F / 175°C. Remove the dough from plastic wrap and cut into discs about 1/4 inch thick (if you prefer thicker cookies, cut into discs about 1/2 inch and you get 20 cookies total). 
11. Place them on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges.  
12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.