Hanging prominently in my kitchen is this reminder: BAKING BECAUSE MURDER IS WRONG
And believe me, these days I need the reminder almost daily.
Which also means that yes, I have been baking.
The positive aspect of this is I have a new favorite cookie recipe to share with you and it is so damn easy and fast to make that there's no reason not to soothe your frazzled nerves and battered emotions with a warm cookie or two. Or three. Or eat the whole damn batch. Allow me to introduce you to the magic of Toasted Sesame Chocolate Chip Cookies.
My usual favorite chocolate chip cookies require me to have my brain turned on: planning ahead so the dough can rest and hydrate, taking time to brown the butter (which always takes longer than I think it should), using the Kitchen Aid mixer to beat and rest the dough multiple times to get the caramel chewiness just right. They aren't cookies that I make on an impulse. But this new recipe is perfect for when you are too fried to do much: all you need are the ingredients, a kitchen scale (almost the entire recipe is in grams rather than by volume) and two bowls. No mixer needed. No special skills. Dry ingredients get put in one bowl, wet in the other and then you mix them together and blop it on a cookie sheet. And after 15 minutes in the oven you get this:
God they are so good.
I think one of the reasons I'm so in love with this recipe is that I had extremely low expectations for it working. While I was stirring it up I was telling my family not to get their hopes up, that they'd probably suck and I'd probably be throwing them away but since I had the ingredients it was worth a shot. It's a vegan cookie and as someone who really enjoys butter and eggs, I had my doubts that it would taste good or have an appealing texture without these two ingredients. But these use a trick from a favorite non-vegan dessert, sticky toffee pudding, where chopped dates get stirred into the batter; the dates kind of melt and give it the chewy texture that I want in a chocolate chip cookie. And the toasted sesame oil? Turns out that it gives a similar toasty flavor as that tediously browned butter. And there's a good amount of whole grain flour in this recipe but somehow it doesn't taste healthy or have a leaden texture. Maybe they are magic cookies?
Here is Sarah Lemanski's recipe from her excellent newsletter Bake Sense.
I've made a few modifications below and this is the version that I am making on repeat.
105g white flour
40g spelt flour (don't have spelt? Just add 40g more whole wheat flour)
2g sea salt
4g baking soda
15g toasted sesame seeds
80g pitted Medjool dates (chopped in small pieces)
90g dark chocolate chips (72% cocoa or whatever you damn like)
90g white sugar
120g dark brown sugar
110g canola oil
10g toasted sesame oil
80g water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 325 convection, 350 regular.
In a medium bowl weigh the flours, salt, baking soda, and toasted sesame seeds and stir to mix the dry ingredients.
In a larger bowl, weigh the sugars, oils, water, and vanilla extract and whisk until the mixture is emulsified and looks like caramel.
Add the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated and there are no dry spots, then add the dates and chocolate chips and continue to mix just until they are evenly distributed.
Scoop the cookie dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet (I use a 2T scoop), leaving an inch between each cookie.
Bake for 8 minutes, rotate the tray for even browning, and continue to bake for 7 minutes, until the edges are toasted and the centers look soft but set.
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