Black Sesame Shortbread

For a Lunar New Year party we were invited to, we made these sesame cookies. They were so good, that I made them again and again over the next few weeks.

The New York Times Cooking recipe requires a food processor to grind the sesame, sugar, and flour together. The machine also makes it easy to incorporate the butter and produce a homogeneous dough. For one of our vegan hosts, I made one batch using a plant-based butter alternative, and it turned out just as well as the batch with regular cow butter.

After chilling for more than 2 hours, the logs were quite firm, and the sliced rounds tended to crack easily. Letting them warm up a bit helped to keep their shape. Don’t forget to roll the log as you slice to ensure perfectly round shapes.

Sprinkling the white sesame on top to match the article’s photo proved to be a bit of a challenge. After trying various techniques (pressing the cookies into a line of sesame, using foil as a mask), what worked best was water. Painting the cookie with a wet brush, then spooning the seeds over top ensured that they stuck where we wanted them.

The cookies spread a little bit, and smelled extremely fragrant while they baked. Kept tightly sealed, they stayed fresh and crisp for up to a week. I loved the flavour and colour contrast of these cookies. Highly recommended.