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Hello everyone, I'm Claire Saffitz. Welcome to my "not home" kitchen. We are in a rented apartment, but I am here to share fall baking recipes. Today I have a special recipe for Halloween. I'm a mom of a toddler now, so my brain has completely rewired itself, and I think a lot about baking with kids. We will make black sesame shortbread cookies, which we will roll out and cut into bat shapes for Halloween. It's very fun and simple. I'll use a hand mixer, it's pretty easy. Let's make sugar cookies for Halloween. My mom always loved baking these cookies for various holidays and simply colored them with food coloring. I remember orange pumpkins for Halloween
and cookies in the shape of bats. But I thought: instead of black dye, it would be better to add ingredients that would add flavor, texture, and color. Today's is a variation on my mom's cookie recipe that I've shown before-it's a very simple but wonderful basic sugar cookie. I changed it up a bit by adding black sesame paste and black cocoa powder. These are two ingredients that are very dark in themselves, plus they are delicious and go well together. I tested the recipe, and Harris said, "You hit the mark." It is so delicious. Wonderful sugar cookies. It's a bit of a sophisticated combination of flavors, but there 's still a sweet glaze on top. So, I think
kids will like it. So, the ingredients for the cookies, because I have separate ingredients for the dough and the frosting. I have wheat flour, sugar, and some black cocoa. I will tell you what black cocoa is. A little kosher salt, baking powder, black sesame paste, vanilla extract, one large egg, 150 grams of butter. For the glaze: powdered sugar, a little milk, and I'll add a teaspoon each of sesame paste and black cocoa for color. And for decoration- black sesame seeds. From the equipment: I will use a hand mixer to knead the dough. You will also need a rolling pin.
I need some cookie cutters. I ordered these. These are small bats. A few decks and parchment. That's really all. Therefore. I'll start by making the dough. I have unsalted butter here. This is not quite room temperature yet. It's still a little hard, but for sugar cookies, it's not necessary to have butter at perfect room temperature. It's simply not necessary. I'll add granulated sugar. I'll put that aside. And now I'm going to mix my dry ingredients. So, I have flour here. Here are 2 and 1/4 cups. Regular high- grade flour. I'll add to it.it's a bit of a strange measure. I don't know why I chose that one, but it's
actually 3/8 of a teaspoon. That is, if you have a 1/4 teaspoon measuring spoon, just take 1.5 times that. So, let's add this. I like to add a little baking powder to my sugar cookies because it gives them a little lightness. And it makes it airy enough so that it is crispy, not hard. Uh, and then I'll add 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. And then I'm going to add 3 tablespoons of this black cocoa powder. So let me tell you what black cocoa powder is. You may be familiar with it without even knowing it, because you've tasted an Oreo. Oreo cookies are made from black cocoa powder. So, I'm adding it here. You see, it's very, very dark.
It's not exactly jet black. It's just an extremely deep brown color. But it looks almost black. In general, cocoa powder is obtained from the cocoa plant, and it is naturally very acidic. powders, there's a type of cocoa called " alkalized" (Dutch type), which I often use in my recipes. I like him very much. It is treated with lye to slightly neutralize the acidity, and this changes the color and taste. This makes it less acidic and more fruity in taste. It takes on a more roasted, deep chocolate hue. So I like it for its taste. And black cocoa is essentially the same processing done many times over to neutralize the acidity as much as possible and
make it very, very dark. It actually dulls the flavor a bit so it's not too intensely chocolatey, but I like that because I often find the chocolate flavor too intense. So I love black cocoa. I love this taste. So if you've eaten an Oreo, that's what dark cocoa tastes like. So, here I use it for a little flavor accent, but of course also for color. Okay, this is my oven. My oven just beeped. I preheat it to 350 degrees. And all because I have the dough ready. So when you make sugar cookie dough, because it's a cookie that needs to be rolled out and cut into shapes, it needs to be chilled first. So I already have a replacement ready. So, if you do this, you'd better prepare the dough in advance.
Okay, now I'm going to add the black sesame paste to the bowl of sugar and butter There are many different types of black sesame seeds. What I ordered is a Japanese brand. Sometimes you can find black tahini. It's not quite the same. Um, many types of black sesame paste are roasted, so they have a deeper flavor. You can use anything you find, it will actually work. This is a third of a cup, and like tahini or natural peanut butter, it often flakes apart in the jar. That is, the solid particles are separated from, um, um.from the oil. So just Note, this does not make the dough coal black. It is more like the color of charcoal. But we're going to make some frosting and use black sesame seeds, so that's going to be, you know, our decoration. So, I'll
start by putting it all together. I have one large egg at room temperature. So I'll start at low speed. And since the butter is slightly chilled, it will take a few minutes for it to fully mix and disperse. So I'll take it slow. If your butter is cold, cut it into pieces. I didn't do this, but it would be easier if you started with the pieces right away. Okay, now we're going to do a step called whipping, where you mix the butter with the sugar. I won't make the mixture too lush. This is not necessary. We don't need a lot of air in this dough. So I just mix it until it's a little fluffy. Not too pale and light. OK. So, it looks good. It only took a minute or two of whipping. I gradually increased the mixer speed to medium or above medium. I add an egg. And I add 2
teaspoons of vanilla extract. Let's count: one, two. OK. So, we're going to beat this until smooth. OK. And now we add the dry ingredients. You can see that there is some flour left at the bottom. I'm not too worried about it. It will all mix up. When I was testing this recipe, I tasted the dough and thought, "I don't know." It's not that sweet. Maybe it should be made a little sweeter. But then I made the frosting and combined them. Obviously, the basis of the glaze is powdered sugar. So it adds just the right amount of sweetness. In my opinion, this is a good balance. If for some reason you want to
make just cookies, you can add a couple of extra tablespoons of sugar. OK. So, I just mix this on low speed until it turns into a dough. Sugar cookies usually contain a high proportion of flour so that they hold their shape in the oven. So if you use molds, whatever shape you put in is what it will come out like. This means that the dough turns out quite stiff when there is so much flour in it. So, we added that flour mixture, which was a little gray because of the cocoa, but as the cocoa moistens, the color darkens significantly. mixed pretty well. It's 92% mixed, I'll do the rest by hand. So I'll just clean the mixer beaters. If you want to make this dough in advance, you certainly can. It tolerates freezing perfectly. You can freeze
it for several months. I'll just knead it a little to absorb the remaining flour. Here is our sugar cookie dough with black sesame seeds and black cocoa. We need to chill it for at least an hour. Two is better. You can put it in the refrigerator for a few days. And if you want it longer, put it in the freezer. So for this I'll just wrap it in cling film. I like to press it down into a thin layer. That way it will cool down faster. I'm just trying to give it an even shape. I'll put it in the fridge and then take out what I already made earlier. Now let's roll it out and cut out our bats. I mean, once the dough is ready, it's pretty simple.
You have to repeat this a few times to cut out all the desired cookies, but then everything goes quickly. So, here is my chilled dough. I froze it because I made it a little in advance. It thawed in the refrigerator. So I will only work with half the dough at a time. Otherwise, it is too large a number. So I'll take half. And I'll keep the other half wrapped in the fridge. If you want, you can make half a batch of dough, or make a full batch and freeze half. You know, it's just too much dough at one time. So, I'm going to sprinkle a little flour on my work surface. I was at home and thinking: " Do I need to take a rolling pin?" I'm
like: "I don't know. Sometimes It happens that there is nothing, but there is a rocking chair." And then I forgot to look for it when I was here. And I forgot to ask someone else to bring it. So we work with a bottle of wine. Yes, she is cold. It is a little damp. This is all true. So, roll it out to a thickness of about three millimeters. It can be from three to six millimeters. It all depends on how thick you want to make it. I have a pastry scraper to help me maneuver and work with the dough. A scraper is great for loosening the dough from the surface and also for separating individual cookies as you lift them.
I must say that this dough is picky. It doesn't get too hard even if you roll it several times. And there is an interesting feature about black sesame paste. It becomes like a lubricant. It actually prevents the dough from sticking. You see, I have a pretty big crack here. You have two options. You can just go ahead and cut around the crack because it doesn't really matter. Or you can patch it up. Cut a piece of dough from the edge and press it into the crack. And continue. And, of course, the orientation of the dough, its overall dimensions, and shape don't really matter, because we'll be cutting figures out of it. So don't worry about it. So, the presence of black sesame seeds is essentially the same idea as adding peanut butter
or any other nut spread. This helps make the dough more tender because you are adding a fair amount of fat as well as a dry ingredient that is not flour. So gluten is not formed. This makes the dough pliable, but at the same time a little brittle. Just keep that in mind. It doesn't have the elasticity of regular sugar cookie dough, so I find it's better for cutting out small shapes. Okay, I think I've spread it thin enough. Probably the thickness is somewhere between an eighth of an inch, maybe a little more. Something between a quarter and an eighth, but that's okay. Now I'll take the bat shape and press it down a little to start carving. I like to press straight down to the very surface and then I wiggle the mold a little. And try to place them as close
to each other as possible. I have several parchment- lined decks behind me. And now we'll just transfer the cookies to a baking sheet. I usually start from the edge, it's easier If it sticks, sprinkle some flour on the surface and use, for example, a spatula dough scraper. You can use flour to lift the dough a little so that it comes off more easily. Here is our bat. Look how cute. They do not spread during baking. That is, they will rise a little due to the baking powder, but will hardly change in shape. So they can be spread out quite densely. I'll continue. I just remove the excess dough and transfer the cookies. Now I'll get into the rhythm: baking, gathering leftovers, rolling out the second half of the dough, and cutting it out. We will work in batches.
They bake quite quickly, somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes, although it's hard to tell when they're done because they're already dark, but that's enough for them. My second batch of cookies is in the oven, 2 minutes left on the timer. Here is my first batch. You see, they turned out very cute. A little baking powder helps because they rise just enough to even out any unevenness. Now we will make the glaze. I'll add a teaspoon of black cocoa here, give or take. It doesn't have to be too precise. This is to give the glaze some color and flavor. And I'll also add a teaspoon of black sesame paste. A little vanilla and a pinch of salt. Then I'll add 2
tablespoons of milk. We make the glaze of medium consistency so that it is neither too thin nor too thick. And we will soak. I no longer have the patience to decorate sugar cookies, like working with a pastry bag. Oh, this is my timer. I'll go check the second batch. They smell ready. They look great too. Okay, great. So, I still have some dough. I mixed the leftovers from two batches together and they are cooling. This is probably about 25% of the entire dough. So I'll come back to them later, and for now we'll just move on to the frosting. You need to beat it all until smooth. Here,
you see the glaze. It's somewhere between a very, very dark brown and a charcoal color. Not quite black. But it will just provide a thin layer of coating for the cookies. So, the process itself. Here are my black sesame seeds. This is an inverted rack from a mini oven because I don't have a cookie stand here. So, I take my bat. I dip the front side into the glaze. I don't want too thick a layer, so I'll clean off the excess a little. You can cover it completely with sesame seeds, or just sprinkle a little on top. And then I leave it to cool on a baking sheet. Well, that's all my decoration. This is easy to do even for children. I dipped it, sprinkled it, and no pastry bags. So, I'll keep going make a second batch when they cool down,
and then we'll come back and try them. So, our bat cookies are ready. And the icing has mostly set. It's just a thin layer. They look so cute. I really like how they turned out. And the color, in my opinion, is wonderful. It's not jet black, but it's quite cool and goes well with the black sesame. Here, you can see it. And black sesame seeds are both a decoration and a pleasant crunch. Okay, now we'll taste. The cocoa powder is only felt in the background, adding a barely noticeable bitterness, but the real highlight here is the black sesame. I like the texture it gives to cookies. This is actually a pretty
grown-up cookie, in my opinion. I don't know if our kids will like it. These are cookies. What, what, what might they not like? This was really fun to cook. Again, I don't do complicated cookie decorating, working with a pastry bag, and so on. For me, it's not worth the effort. So dip and sprinkle-it's very simple. You can use any other topping you like if you don't want to add black sesame seeds. A great Halloween project. You can freeze it. You can freeze already baked cookies if you want. And then get it when it's convenient for you. A fun project, interesting for kids, and you don't have to make bats. You can make any shape you want.
Well, thank you very much for watching Dessert Person. Happy Halloween and don't forget to like and subscribe.
