EDIT NOTE: If you got an earlier copy of this recipe, I originally forgot to include the 1 cup of light brown sugar. Sorry for any cookie disasters. –V
In looking through the mountain o’ cards, clippings and books, I happily re-stumbled across this gem. It has a bit of an emotional attachment for me because it was one of the things I made while we were home with my dad in hospice. I cooked and baked a lot those brief days. We had a house full of people, his sisters and their husbands and my siblings and their spouses and children. I made cookies and cinnamon buns and soup, a lot of soup as I recall. These cookies take a significant chunk of time because they are rolled out and the recipe makes 4-6 dozen depending on the size star cutter you use so I made small ones and spent 2 good hours in the kitchen, trying to think about something besides the inevitable.
I like them as a tiny elegant cookie or as a half-palm sized treat. They make a good finish with mint tea for a Moroccan or North African meal. The recipe comes from Mollie Katzen’s wonderful book Vegetable Heaven with a few tweaks by me.
Sesame Stars
A few sesame seeds for rolling, plus
some for the tops
1 cup of butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces), softened
1 cup tahini (ground sesame butter)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (the salt is critical for taste)
Demerara or Sugar in the Raw sugar for the tops
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Cream together the butter, tahini and the sugars in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each in before adding the next. Beat in the vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and sift it on top of the butter/tahini mixture. Stir until combined. The dough should be pliable but stiff enough to roll. If the butter has gotten too soft you can pop it in the chiller for 15 minutes.
Sprinkle a very lightly floured board with a handful of sesame seeds and roll the dough out to 1/4″ thick. Cut with 2 1/2″ or 1″ cookie cutters. You can dmake both sizes, but put only one size on a cookie sheet to encourage even browning.
Sprinkle the cookies with sesame seeds and the Demerara sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes, less (8-10 mins.) for the 1″ cookies, or until lightly browned at the edges. Cool on racks.
These cookies store beautifully for up to a week. The dough also freezers well and can be made into 1 1/2″ in diameter logs of dough and then sliced, while still nearly frozen, into coins. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and sugar and bake just as for the stars.
