If you have only thought of tahini as an essential ingredient in hummus or as part of a savory sauce or dressing, you have been missing out on the delicate richness it can add to sweets. I have had it in ice cream and cookies and while a skeptic at first, I am now a believer.
For me, the perfect chocolate chip cookie has just the right balance between the sweet, unctuous dough and the bitter edge of the chocolate. Equally important, though, is that the outer skin of the cookie has a slight crackle to it and when you take a bite, your teeth sink into the slightly chewy center. These cookies come from David Lebovitz. The only change I made from his recipe was in the baking temperature and timing. Now some of that could be because of the vagaries of my particular oven, but it is also personal taste. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that you only need to bake up what you want to eat right then. And these are best eaten the same day. The dough, however, will last in the fridge for a week. I know – who allows cookie dough to go uneaten for an entire week?! Point taken. The tahini flavor is delicate so for anyone who is unsure, give it a try, but use a really good quality tahini like Soom brand.
I made mine using a small cookie scoop so I will get between 2 and 3 dozen cookies out of this recipe. I would have used chocolate chunks that I made from some wonderful dark chocolate disks that I have, but since my pantry currently is holding about 10 pounds of chocolate chips, I thought I had better start using them up instead. How did I end up with so many chocolate chips, you ask? Well every time they were on sale, I bought a couple of bags thinking I would be making lots of my banana bread or ricotta rum cake completely forgetting that without Matthew at home, that wasn’t happening. After a year of doing this, I developed quite a stockpile. Fortunately, while dark chocolate may develop a bloom, it doesn’t actually go bad. Milk chocolate (which I personally dislike and never use) is another story. If you are using chocolate chips, please only use a very good quality chocolate chip – the darker the better and only real chocolate. For an incredible Tahina Shortbread Cookie check out Frances’ earlier post.
Salted Chocolate Chip Tahini Cookies by David Lebovitz
Yield: 2- 3 dozen cookies depending on size
Ingredients

Storage: These cookies will keep for two or three days at room temperature, but are definitely better the same day they’re baked. You will lose the crispy outer texture and chewiness; the cookie will be uniformly a soft cookie. The unbaked dough can be refrigerated for up to one week, and frozen for up to two months.