Almond and Tahini Cookies
Gluten Free | Vegan
These do more than fill the biscuit tin. Almond meal and tahini together make this a genuinely mineral-dense snack rather than an empty one. Tahini is one of the richest food sources of calcium, magnesium and zinc, and it carries sesame lignans, compounds with mild phyto-oestrogenic activity that partly explain why sesame features so heavily in traditional postpartum and women's diets. Almond meal adds vitamin E, more magnesium again, and enough fibre that the natural sugars in the maple syrup land gently rather than spiking and dropping you.
There is no refined sugar and no seed oil here, and the fat and fibre slow the release, which is the whole point when you are reaching for something at 3pm and your blood sugar (and your patience) is dipping. Magnesium is the thread running through the recipe, and it is one of the first minerals to run low in the stretched, nervous-system-taxed years of mothering and perimenopause. A cookie like this is a quiet, everyday way to keep topping it up.
prep time 5 mins | cook time 10 mins | total time 15 mins | Servings:14+
Ingredients
1½ cups buckwheat flour
2 cups (225 g) almond meal ¾ cup (200 g) hulled tahini ½ cup (130 mL) maple syrup ½ tsp sea salt flakes 2 tsp vanilla extract Crushed cacao nibs and chopped pistachios, to finishMethod
Preheat the oven to 170°C (150°C fan-forced) and line a rimmed tray with baking paper.
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir the tahini, maple syrup, salt and vanilla together until smooth and just warmed through, around 2 to 3 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool for 10 minutes. Warming loosens the tahini so it folds through evenly, but it needs to cool or the dough will turn oily. Stir in the almond meal until a rough dough comes together. It should hold when pressed. If it feels too wet, rest it a few minutes longer and the almond meal will keep drinking up the moisture.
Scoop portions of 1 to 2 tablespoons, roll into balls and flatten slightly on the tray. A cookie scoop pressed down does the same job in half the time.
Press cacao nibs and chopped pistachios into the top of each disc. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven off and leave the cookies in the residual heat for a further 5 minutes, until lightly golden at the edges. They firm up as they cool, so resist the urge to overbake.
Cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container for up to a week, or freeze well for longer.
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