Browned Butter Tahini No-Bake Cookies

I’ll be honest, I never held no-bake cookies in much regard. They always tasted too sweet to me and who would want a no-bake cookie when you could have, you know, a baked one?

Then I bought a beautiful old house with original woodwork and floors and radiators and no air conditioning. It was time to reassess the no-bake cookie situation.

The thing about no-bake cookies is that, at their core, they aren’t a cookie. They are a stove top fudge, held together by oats so as to make them portable and a bit more hearty. So I wanted to find a way to hold onto the creamy goodness of the fudge, while scaling back the tooth-aching sweetness.

I’ve done a lot of regular baking with tahini – cookies and bars so why not try it here? It hits all the right notes. Browned butter deepens the nuttiness (and makes your house smell amazing) and a mixture of quick cooking oats and old fashioned work to better bind the base ingredients, while maintaining a nice, toothsome texture.

These cookies are not going to win a “sexy cookie” competition (of which I would like to be a judge), but they will win the “OMG, what is in this, it’s SO good!” award. And we all know it’s what’s on the inside that matters, anyway.

Browned Butter Tahini No-Bake Cookies

Recipe by Kris Cramer

Servings

24

cookies

Prep time

30

minutes

Rest time

1

hour 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 cup tahini

• 1 teas. vanilla

• 1/4 teas. salt

• 2 cups old fashioned oats

• 1 to 1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

• Heat butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until bubbling, swirling the pan occaisionally. When it starts to foam keep a careful eye, poking the foam aside to look for browning. A good clue is to listen for the sizzling to go quiet – that’s usually when it’s ready.
• Transfer browned butter (scraping out any yummy browned bits) into a large heat proof bowl and add brown sugar. Whisk for a couple of minutes, until the brown sugar dissolves completely (you might want to bust out the electric mixer for this). Careful of splattering!
• Add tahini, salt and vanilla and mix to combine before adding both kinds of oats. Start with the smaller amount of quick cooking and add a little more if needed, keeping in mind that the oats will soak up a lot of the moisture.
• Let the dough chill for a bit in the fridge until it feels about room temperature (maybe 20 minutes) before adding the chocolate chips (unless you want them to be melty streaks of chocolate, which is totally respectable).
• Then scoop out cookie sized scoops onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet and cool in the fridge until set, an hour or so. I find them best served cold from the fridge and will last for up to 2 weeks.

Notes

• Other flavor ideas: omit the chocolate and add 1/2 teas ground cardamom and the zest of one orange for a more grown up spin on the no-bake cookie.
• Not all tahini’s are made the same – the BEST I’ve ever had is by Soom.