Tahini Shortbread Cookies with Salted Honey Ganache

I seem to become easily obsessed with ingredients, some become short lived obsessions some stick around for years. Tahini has become my most recent obsession, I have been sneaking it into as many recipes as I can. The recipe that started this love affair was a chocolate tahini bundt cake that I developed for Olive Magazine (it's still one of my favourites). The combo of chocoalte and tahini is magical, it just works. If you've never had tahini in a sweet recipe think of it playing a similar role to peanut butter, it has a deep roasted sesame flavour and works beautifully in sweet recipes. This cookie recipe was inspired by a picture of shortbread from a bakery in the states; it was thick and simply served, no adornment, no filling, just simply served sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds. In my mind this turned into what we have here, a crisp tahini shortbread sandwiched together with a salted honey ganache and like most recipes that sit on that line of sweet and savoury they're incredibly moreish, they're also slice and bake cookies making them quick and easy to make. 

Tahini Shortbread Cookies with Salted Honey Ganache
Makes about 35 cookies
200g unsalted butter, room temperature
100g caster sugar
75g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
100g tahini
385g plain flour

Salted Honey Ganache
100g dark chocolate (65-75% cocoa solids)
100g double cream
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp tahini
1/2 tsp flaked sea salt

Decoration
1 large egg white
a mix of black and white sesame seeds (2/3 white 1/3 black)

To make the cookies place the butter and sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer, along with the vanilla and salt. With the paddle attachment beat together for about 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Scrape in the tahini and mix briefly to combine. Add the flour and mix briefly just until combined, you want to avoid over mixing at this point as the cookies will come out tough. Tip the dough out onto the worksurface and use your hands to bring together into a uniform dough. 

Cut the dough in half and form into thick sausage shapes, roughly 5cm thick. As these are slice and bake cookies you want to get these logs as round as possible, if you want to learn a nice tip on how to do this you can watch the video. Wrap the logs of dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for about 4 hours until firm. 

Preheat the oven to 180C 350F and line three baking trays with parchment paper. 

Using a thin sharp knife cut the cookies into rounds, about 4-5mm thick and place onto the prepared baking trays. Dont worry too much about the cookies spreading, you can leave just a couple cm's between each cookie. Lightly brush each cookie with egg white and sprinkle liberally with the sesame seed mix. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool on the baking trays.

For the filling place the cream, honey, tahini and salt into a small saucepan and over medium heat bring to a simmer. Make sure to stir this mixture regularly as the honey will sink to the bottom of the pan catching and burning quite quickly. Once at a simmer pour the cream mixture into a bowl with the chocolate and sit for a couple minutes before stirring together to form a silky smooth ganache. Set aside until thickened enough to hold its shape then scrape into a piping back and pine rounds of ganache onto half of the cookies, sandwiching together with a second cookie. 

Over the time the ganache will soften the cookies so I prefer to keep these in a sealed container in the fridge, where they will keep for up to four days. 

Brownie Crinkle Cookies

First off let me apologise for the sheer amount of teasing I did with this recipe, over on Instagram I have been telling you this recipe was on its way, far too many times. The simple reason being that whilst it fudgy, rich and delicious after the first test I wanted to make sure the texture was spot on each and every time it was baked. I wanted to get the texture perfect, the right amount of spread, the fudgy inside and the shiny glossy top. Turns out this cookie, being made of a small handful of ingredients and very limited flour, is very susceptiple to changes depending on the temperature of the batter. Let the chocolate and butter cool down too much and the cookies spread way too much, use it while too hot and the cookies loose that beatiful glossy finish and dont spread enough. After many, many tests, every single one a terrible chocolate filled chore, I finally nailed the recipe. I really wanted to make a intensely chocolate flavoured cookie that had a texture that reminded you of that perfect fudge brownie. What I was trying to avoid however was a recipe that needed a prolonged chilling stage, in fact I wanted to avoid chilling completely if possible, I need my cookie fix way quicker than that! And that isnt to say a cookie like this that is chilled cant be fabulous, this recipe itself is based off my rye chocolate cookies from Olive Magazine which are chilled for 4 hours before baking and they are fabulous. After a lot of tinkering I am finally happy with the cookie and I cannot wait to see you guys making it, and with Easter weekend coming up fast this would be the perfect thing to make.

Note
Just a quick note on ingredients before I get to the recipe. For this cookie, with so few ingredients, it is really important to use good quality products. For the chocolate stick to something that a) you love the taste of and b) is around the 70% cocoa content mark. This isn't about the notion that 70% cocoa is an indicator of quality, it really isn't, it's more so that it tells you more about what the chocolate is made up of. If you use a 45% chocolate, for example, that's a lot more sugar and will change the texture of the cookies, and trust me these cookies, whilst incredibly simple to make, don't like being messed around with that much. The second important ingredient to choose carefully is the cocoa powder. I used the dutched cocoa rouge from Guittard because it has a deep rich flavour and colour. If you use a natural cocoa instead it wont lend the same colour or intensity of flavour. Now I know a lot of you are know saying, 'what on earth is dutched cocoa' and simply put, it is cocoa powder that has been treated with an alkali that darkens the colour and makes for a richer cocoa. If you are in the UK, or really anywhere in Europe thankfully this is generally what is available, but if you are in the US look for a cooca that mentions that mentions an alkali or calls itself dutched cocoa. Just avoid anything labeled natural, it wont be as good in this recipe. If the cocoa really doesnt give any indicator of wheter it is dutched or not look at the colour, generally speaking dutched cocoa has a deeper darker brown colour, less bright and red than natural cocoa. If you want more info about this, check out this great piece on Serious Eats

Brownie Crinkle Cookies
Makes 10

200g dark chocolate (around 65-70% cocoa solids), finely chopped
125g unsalted butter, diced
150g caster sugar
100g light brown sugar
2 large eggs
130g plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder (dutch processed)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (plus flaked sea salt for sprinkling)

Temperature and timing is very important with this recipe so before you start get all the ingredients weighed out, two baking trays lined with parchment paper and the oven preheated to 180C (160C fan) 350F.

Place the butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl and set over a pan and gently simmering water. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally until fully melted. Remove the bowl from the heat and set aside for the moment. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or using an electric hand mixer, whisk together the eggs and sugars, on medium-high speed, for exactly 5 minutes. Once the eggs have been mixing for exactly 5 minutes pour in the chocolate mixture and mix for a minute or so to combine. Meanwhile mix together the dry ingredients, sieving the cocoa powder if it has lots of lumps. Add the dry ingredients and mix very briefly just until combined. Use your spatula to give one last mix, scraping the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly combined. Use a ice cream scoop to form the cookies. The batter will be a little on the wet side, so invert the cookie scoop just above the baking tray to avoid spills. Make sure to leave plenty of space between each cookie as they will spread. Sprinkle each cookie with a little flaked sea salt before placing into the oven and baking for 12 minutes. The cookies will come out of the oven with that wonderful crinkled look and slightly domed. They will collapse a little as they cool but this helps form that perfect fudgy centre. The cookies will be very soft so allow them to cool on the baking trays for at least 20-30 minutes before removing from the tray to cool completley. 

These cookies will keep for 4-5 days but will be best within the first 3 days. 

Passion Fruit and Chocolate Bundt Cake

Considering how many times I have made this cake recently you could easily expect me to be completely sick of it. This recipe, a twist on a classic pound cake, infused with passion fruit and glazed with dark chocolate, was originally made for my British Issue of the wonderful Bake From Scratch Magazine. One of the features I helped organise was the Bakers Potluck; we got some of the UK's best and brightest bakers together in a kitchen to bake, share and basically just enjoy each others company, it was an amazing day and a lot of fun. My recipe for the potluck had nothing really to do with British baking more my personal favourite styles and flavours. I am a big fan of Bundt cakes (I have way too many Bundt tins for my tiny kitchen) and the combination of chocolate and passionfruit which I go back to time and time again. The resulting cake was incredibly easy to make, a slight tweak on the all in one method and a cake that happily lasts for up to 5 days. When we set out on the Bake Like A Brit Tour with the magazine this was the recipe we decided to demo at each stop of the tour. We were also sponsored by the fabulous Guittard Chocolate of San Francisco and the brilliant bakeware company, and the inventor of the Bundt Pan, Nordicware from Minneapolis, so the recipe was the perfect fit. 

Note: This version of the cake is slightly different from the version that appears in the magazine, that is because it was originally developed for a larger Bundt pan, so it has been reduced to fit the Crown Bundt pan that I used for this post (if you watch the video for this recipe you will see why I reduced the recipe slightly).

Chocolate and Passion Fruit Bundt Cake

6 large eggs
375g caster sugar
zest of 2 lemons
200ml light flavoured olive oil
135g full fat yoghurt
35ml passion fruit puree
165g self rising flour
75g ground almonds
75g fine semolina
1/2 tsp baking powder

Blood Orange Syrup
100ml passion fruit puree
100g caster sugar 

Dark Chocolate Glaze
150g dark chocolate (I used Guittards 66% dark chocolate discs)
200ml double cream

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) and lightly grease a 10-cup capacity bundt cake pan. Lightly dust the inside of the pan with a little extra flour and tap out any excess leaving a thin coating. These steps will help ensure the cake comes out clean. I personally prefer to use a spray oil for this and it ensures a thin coating then gets into every nook of the pan.

In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, caster sugar and lemon zest using a electric mixer, on high speed, for about 5 minutes or until the mixture is pale and light. Meanwhile, in a jug whisk together the oil, yoghurt and passion fruit puree. Add the oil mixture to the egg mixture and whisk briefly to combine. In a separate bowl mix together all the dry goods, then add to the liquid goods and mix briefly just until evenly combined. Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan and set onto a baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. 

When it comes to turning out a Bundt without damaging the cake I find the best thing you can do is place the cake onto a wire rack for exactly ten minutes before attempting to turn it out. If you try and remove the cake any earlier it will not have had enough time to fully set so is more likely to break apart. If you wait much longer the cake can become a little sticky and wedge itself inside the pan, so 10 minutes is that perfect sweet spot.

Once the cake has been removed from the pan and is cooling on a wire rack make the syrup. In a small saucepan bring the passion fruit and sugar to a simmer, cooking just until the sugar has been dissolved. Whilst the cake is still warm brush the syrup all over, allowing it soak into the cake. Set the cake aside until fully cool.

Once ready to glaze place the chocolate discs into a bowl and the cream into a small saucepan. Bring the cream to a simmer and pour over the chocolate, setting aside for a couple minutes before stirring together to form a silky ganache. Set the glaze in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes or until the glaze has thickened up but it still pourable. Set the cake, still on a wire rack, over a piece of parchment paper and pour the ganache all over the cake (the paper will catch any drips that fall from the cake). 

Kept in a sealed container this cake will keep for up to 5 days. 

Thai Baked Cod

This weeks recipe is the last in my healthy baking series with Weightwatchers, and this week its a simple thai inspired baked cod. Its a super healthy dish packed full of flavour and I love the taste of this dish, its bright and fresh and the fennel adds a great texture, lots of crunch. If you haven't seen the other recipes head to my youtube channel to watch the other three episodes. 

To make this dish I make a paste full of herbs, gingers and a little bit of heat from red chilli, this is spread over cod fillets and baked, then served with fennel that is grilled with chilli, lime and soy sauce. Its a simple side but I love it, the fennel still retains a little crunch but is infused with great flavour, even if you dont serve this with the cod it is a great side. 

Baked Cod

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled
2 stalks lemongrass, roughly chopped
2 green chillies, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
2 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
juice of 1/2 lime
small handful of coriander stalks (keep the leaves for garnish)
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 fillets of cod

Grilled Fennel
2 heads of fennel, sliced lengthways into 1cm thick pieces
1 red chilli, finely diced
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tbsp soy sauce 

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Blitz the ginger, lemongrass, green chillies, garlic, shallots, lime and fish sauce with and hand blender or a mini chopper until a rough mixture is formed. Place the fillets of cod onto the prepared baking tray and spread the paste over the top.

Mix together the red chilli, lime juice, olive oil and soy sauce and pour over the fennel, tossing to coat. Heat a griddle pan over medium/high heat and once hot, cook the fennel for about 4-5 minutes per side, cooking until dark grill marks appear.

Once cooked, surround the fish with the fennel and bake in the oven for about 22-25 minutes until the fish is cooked through.