Okay, so I’ve been meaning to create some kind of sesame cookie for the longest time. I mean, who can resist all the cute, sesame-covered cookies on Instagram? I can’t. They’re beautiful, I love sesame, and I love cookies. When I set out to create my own black sesame cookie, I quickly ditched the idea of rolling my dough balls in sesame seeds. It was just too much for me. Instead, I whipped up a quick black sesame powder by toasting and then blending my black sesame seeds. And OMG. The powder is amazing. I added it to the dough and then sprinkled the dough balls with sesame seeds, and these cookies are the perfect, chewy black sesame cookie. Like, three days later these cookies are still chewy and delicious.
I added olive oil to this dough, because I really wanted these cookies to be chewy. And I love olive oil. I like the taste, and we use it for everything at our house. But if you’re only here for the black sesame, that’s cool, too. You can use any kind of neutral, vegetable in these cookies. I don’t recommend any other replacements as I haven’t tried them, and cookies in general are usually pretty finicky. You’ll definitely need to chill your dough, and even then, the dough will be quite sticky and wet when you go to make your dough balls. With this recipe, the final, cooled cookie will look totally different than what you pull out of the oven, so keep that in mind (and don’t worry when you pull puffy cookies out of the oven) and happy baking!
Chewy Black Sesame Olive Oil Cookies (dairy-free!)
Makes 12 cookies
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup black sesame seed powder*
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 Tbsp black sesame seeds to sprinkle (optional)
1.) Bring your eggs to room temperature by placing them in a glass of warm water for 10 minutes.
2.) Meanwhile, make your black sesame seed powder by toasting at least 1/2 cup of black sesame seeds in a dry pan set on medium heat. Stir sesame seeds frequently until the nutty aroma fills the air and the pan begins to smoke a bit. This step took me between 5 and 8 minutes, and it was very obvious when the seeds began to release their aroma. Next, you’ll blend the toasted seeds in a blender or food processor until you have fine crumbs.
3.) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, black sesame powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
4.) In a large bowl, mix together the coconut sugar and olive oil. Whisk in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract until totally combined. Add liquid ingredients to dry and use a large spatula or spoon to gently mix the ingredients together. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
5.) Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 1.5 Tbsp balls of dough, 6 at a time, onto a small plate or cutting board. Your dough will be very soft, so you’ll want to put the rest back in the refrigerator. Roll each dough ball smooth and place on your baking sheet, using your fingers to gently shape the dough into a neat ball. The dough balls will begin to spread and flatten a bit while you’re working – this is normal. Sprinkle the tops with whole black sesame seeds (toasted or untoasted).
6.) Bake the cookies at 350°F for 5-7 minutes or until cookies are puffy and the centers no longer look wet. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. After the first minute, you can use your fingers to gently push the edges of each cookie into a neater circle, if desired (I did this). Transfer to a cooling rack. Your cookies will deflate and soften up the longer they sit. I actually found them to be softer the next day! Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. Enjoy!
*I highly recommend making your own – it’s super easy! Plus, there may be a difference in moisture content in homemade vs store bought black sesame powder.
This recipe tastes good, but it makes nothing resembling a cookie. After my fourth attempt to make this cookie, I finally got something that you can at least hold in your hand like a cookie, rather than something that droops viscously from your fingers by adding another half cup of flour, but then they didn’t really settle down into the crinkly beauties shown here (I overcooked one batch, but the second one I took out the moment it turned not-wet-looking in the middle, and they still stayed puffy). While I think the almost-inedible droopy ones could be good frozen into pretty tasty ice cream sandwiches, adding ingredient weights and maybe some process photos would probably help this recipe a lot. Thanks!
I’m sorry this recipe didn’t work out for you. I’ve made the base cookie dough many, many times for other sugar cookie recipes and always get cookies. The kind you can hold in your hand. I’m really not sure what went wrong for you here if they still failed after four attempts. Perhaps it was the black sesame powder? Or the cups to metric conversion?
These definitely came through for me, looked like the pictures, had dough that once chilled wasn’t difficult to work with, and were pretty yummy. I think the key to nailing the recipe is getting the ingredient ratios right and not making substitutions. The ratios work, but the tricky thing is that they’re volume measurements. Volume measurements tend to lend themselves to variations and deviations from a recipe when you’re putting it together. That’s why I used the weight (gram) equivalents. Also, the coconut sugar is not something you want to sub for regular brown sugar. It’s a 1:1 trade people can often successfully make, but for these cookies? Nah. Brown sugar has a noticeably higher moisture content than coconut sugar. Seems a brown sugar sub would make this already wet dough a cookie fail. Hope this is helpful!
Just made these and WOW they are delicious! Perfectly chewy and soft – I baked them a little extra for the crisp edges 💯
I’m SO glad you loved these! This is my go-to sugar cookie recipe, and I love the added black sesame 🙂
These were delicious. I used granulated white sugar, since I didn’t have coconut and I chilled the dough overnight. My oven temperature runs a little low so 8-9 minutes was the sweet spot for me. Thank you for this recipe! Will make again.
Thank you so much, Martha! I’m happy you loved these 🙂
Best recipe EVER. So stoked to have a chewy cookie that is savoury and no chocolate! I used rye flour (3:1 ratio of rye and wholemeal rye) and the texture was utterly amazing.
Thank you so much, Natasha!! Such a sweet compliment, and I’m so glad you loved these 🙂