Chewy Tahini-Cardamom Cookies with Orange Zest

I’m so excited to be posting the first recipe on my new blog, and it’s only appropriate that it is dessert and a cookie at that.

Thinking back to when my baking love started, I can only think of my love for sweets. I was that little girl rummaging through the cookie jar when I thought no one was looking, thinking how sly I was. This usually ended with my mom asking me if I had had any cookies, me shaking my head no in response with my cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk. I’m not sure how that conversation usually ended, but I know then and still today, I LOVE sweets. Half the fun of baking yummy treats is taste testing the dough in the process, and then literally getting to have your cake and eat it too. Double win.

So today I am sharing a recent creation of mine in response to my Instagram page and interest in the recipe. It was inspired from my deep taste tickling fancy of the perfect chewy peanut butter cookie. As for most individuals, peanut is a very common food sensitivity with the affect of the mold aflatoxin on the liver due to conditions that peanuts are produced in. The idea to use tahini as a replacer for peanut butter was inspired by a friend of mine who just simply loves tahini. We had a cooking lesson day which pretty much comprised of just sharing our passion for cooking while I offered some tips in the kitchen, creating some delicious Indian food. She requested that we make cookies, and she was in a serious mood for tahini. Tahini cookies sounded pretty darn tootin good to me. The consistency and thus end result was just like that of peanut butter. I was reminded of one of the smartest and simplest peanut butter cookie recipes ever created on this planet that I learned from my days working at a bakery. It’s the melt in your mouth, perfectly chewy, sweet and salty cookie that is cheek stuffing worthy. When I thought of that cookie, I knew I could recreate these tahini based cookies to fit that profile. After some research of recipes, playing around with variations, and a lot of taste testing, these happened.

The cardamom and orange pairing was just a result of my fun in the kitchen for creative flavor profiles. The cardamom adds this deep warming spice to the pleasantly salty rich tahini while the orange zest lightens it up a bit. And what’s a cookie without some icing? Well, still a delicious cookie, but why not have some fun decorating and adding a little more of that cardamom and orange kick.

If cardamom isn’t your thing, simple tahini is still absolutely Devine. Just add a little sea salt on top and you just took it to the next level. There is so much you can do with variety once you have the base for a solid recipe. I hope my ideas and recipes will be the inspiration to getting creative in the kitchen. Cheers to that.

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