Modified NYT Salted Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday, I took my regularly scheduled rest day after three weeks of steadier running than I’ve been hitting in the last six months. Today, my alarm went off and I had ample time for a run before it got hot out, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I slept another two hours and it was 80 degrees and I knew the run could wait until tomorrow.

After my run tomorrow morning, I’m looking forward to eating a few of these tahini chocolate chip cookies, which I adapted from this NYT Cooking recipe. I’ll be honest, I’m not wild for chocolate chip cookies to begin with, so these felt like an upgrade to me.

I won’t repost the whole recipe here, but I wanted to share some modifications I made and how they worked out for me.

White and Brown Sugar

• I used equal parts brown and white sugar, with the help of Serious Eats, instead of one cup of white sugar.

Browned Butter

• I replaced the one stick of butter with a stick and a little extra, which I browned. After more reading on Serious Eats, it sounded like the best approach was to add some extra egg (in equal parts yolk and white), but the recipe already called for a whole egg and a yolk, so for the sake of conservation I just went with two whole eggs. I mixed the browned butter with one egg and the half cup of brown sugar, then added the (already mixed) white sugar and other egg in before adding the dry ingredients per the recipe.

Baking Powder

• I don’t have baking soda right now, so I replaced the half teaspoon of baking soda with a teaspoon and a half of baking powder for a total of two teaspoons.

Freeze the Dough

• I’m impatient. I wanted to bake a test batch of these tonight, so instead of letting the dough rest in the fridge for 12 hours, I refrigerated for a half hour, then froze it for another hour. I’ll be baking the other ones tomorrow, but the freeze method worked well enough.

Sesame Seed Sprinkles

• I love sesame seeds. I thought it would make a nice garnish to add some sesame seeds to the tops, but I worried the seeds would burn while the cookies baked, so I only tried them on one to start out. They didn’t burn; I actually feel like they could have safely toasted a little more in the oven.

Modified Bake Time

• My oven doesn’t heat precisely. I baked these for about 18 minutes on the middle rack and four minutes on the top rack. When I moved them to the top rack, they were still really underbaked.

Next Time

I might try rolling these in sesame seeds and brown sugar, snickerdoodle-style, to see if I can get a little caramelization on them. The next time I bake these, I’ll try using a 3:1 brown to white sugar ratio for a richer flavor, but stick to the two whole eggs in hope that the brown sugar balances out the cookie height a bit.

Results

I haven’t made these cookies as directed, but I liked what I made. The tahini flavor was still subtle, even with the sesame seeds. The browned butter and brown sugar both lent a richer flavor to the cookie. I liked the texture; it wasn’t especially cakey or uniform. They were less craggy than some people might like (I only learned about “cragginess” from Serious Eats today), and the extra egg white made them taller, which I loved but you might not. Of course, the NYT cookies probably come out pretty beautiful on their own, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to brown some butter. This isn’t a baking blog, just a blog by someone who likes to run and, as a result, has to eat a lot. If you make these, let me know how they come out on instagram.

Cheers!