White Sesame Tahini and Condensed Milk Cookies

Ingredients for the tahini

• 1 cup (140g) hulled sesame seeds
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Ingredients for the cookie

• 1/2 cup (115g) room temperature butter
• 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup (200g) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cups (180g) all purpose flour
• A pinch of salt
• Approximately 1/2 cup sesame seeds (for dusting)

Instructions

1. First, let’s make the tahini. In a food processor (or a mini blender), add sesame seeds and blend until it’s flour-like. Add olive oil and blend again until it becomes a paste. If you use store-bought tahini, you can skip this step.
2. On a plate, spoon tahini into little balls (approximately 10). If the tahini is too runny, you can grind sesame seeds a tablespoon at a time until it’s thicker, like the consistency of peanut butter. Place into the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. In the meantime, let’s make the cookies! Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl of a stand mixer, add butter, granulated sugar, and vanilla extract and mix on medium high speed for 3 minutes or until the butter is creamy.
4. Add sweetened condensed milk and mix again until combined.
5. Add all purpose flour and salt to the mixture and mix again until combined. Use a spatula and scrape down the sides. The mixture at this point should be soft, but not wet.
6. Spoon a ball of dough into your hands and flatten into a circle. Place a chilled tahini ball in in the middle of the circle and wrap the dough around the tahini ball. Roll again to form a ball and flatten the cookie into a disk.
7. Place the disk into the bowl of sesame seeds and cover on all sides. Place the cookies onto a parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until cookies are slightly browned, and then you’re done!

White Sesame Tahini and Condensed Milk Cookies is actually an ad hoc recipe that I randomly threw together. I was making some tahini and got inspired by all the traditional peanut butter cookies that I had been seeing all over Instagram. This got me thinking, why not have a sesame version? The tahini doesn’t end up being gooey like other filled cookies, but it does make this cookie have the best soft texture on the inside with a crunchy and toasty outside.