Cookbook Club – Jerusalem

For October’s Cookbook Club, we used Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. I made the Tahini Cookies. You can see our explorations of all the colorful cuisine of their hometown on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish!

I recently heard an interview with Yotam Ottolenghi where he talked about desserts in his restaurant. They sounded wonderful, so I decided to try making one of his dessert recipes. I like tahini, and I like cookies, so Tahini Cookies it was!

I beat together butter and sugar.

Then mixed in tahini, vanilla, and heavy cream.

Then I beat in flour until the dough came together.

I transferred to a work surface and kneaded the dough smooth.

I rolled the dough into balls and pressed the tops slightly with a fork.

A little sprinkle of cinnamon, and the tahini cookies went into the oven.

I have to admit I actually messed up and forget to add cinnamon to the first batch of cookies before putting them in the oven. So I sprinkled the cinnamon on after, and no one seemed to notice. I also thought that the first batch got a bit dark when I left them in for the recommended cooking time of 15 minutes, so I only did the second batch for 14 minutes.

At the first bite, I thought the cookies were a bit too dry for my liking, but then I found myself reaching for another one. People at the Cookbook Club party agreed – they were strangely addictive, probably because they were buttery with just a touch of sweetness. I enjoyed the tahini flavor, but I prefer a chewy cookie to a crunchy one.