Tahini Double Chocolate Cookies
Dairy-free, gluten-free
One of my favorite cookies that I have made is my malted triple chocolate cookies. It was one of the first recipes that I came up with and it was a hit. That cookie is made with all the butter, all the sugar and yes, gluten. If gluten is no problem for you, you should give those a try, but I wanted to make a cookie with the same taste and feel. I wanted to make it without the butter, all refined sugar and gluten, of course.
I am always a sucker for a chocolate cookie, so even more so when it is a double chocolate cookie. These cookies use three types of chocolate: cocoa powder, dark chocolate and ‘milk’ chocolate. I went through a lot of iterations of these cookies. I cannot tell you how many times I would get the perfect flavor, but the texture would be off. And then the next time it would be the other way around. Why? Baking is chemistry. You need every ingredient to be just right, in the right amount to all come together and create the perfect result. When you change one of those ingredients, it throws off the whole equation.
It is not as easy as just swapping out butter for oil, flour for gluten-free flours and cane sugar for an alternative. You need to make sure that you have the right mix to get just the right amount of fat and moisture, sweetness, chewy without being dry and, of course, the right amount of chocolate.
Certain ingredients really give these cookies the power they need to come out just right and be uber delicious.
Tahini + Coconut Oil + Olive Oil
Why use one fat when you can use three? Well I will tell you why. You need the variety of fat to make these cookies really moist in the middle and not dry out when baking. I love tahini, but cocoa powder is very absorptive. It is like a sponge and sucks up any excess moisture in a baked good. Tahini gives the subtle savory, nutty flavor while the coconut and olive oils give the added fat that you need to make these cookies some chewy deliciousness. Fat is the key to a tender, soft cookie so don’t shy away from it.
Can you just do tahini and olive oil? Or Tahini and coconut oil? You certainly could. I have not tested it that way, but you can choose your own adventure.
Dutch Cocoa Powder
I have three types of cocoa powder in my pantry: natural, dutch and ultra dutch (aka black cocoa). Why three? Because they all add a little something different to a recipe. For most of my cookie recipes, I like to use dutch-process cocoa powder because it gives an mild chocolate flavor and darker color. And what is dutch cocoa, you ask? It is cocoa powder that has been alkalinized, meaning the natural acidity in the cocoa powder has been neutralized (sounds like a sci-fi line). While dutch cocoa powder has a milder chocolate flavor, it has a smoother flavor, with less assertive bitterness.
Dutch cocoa is in most super markets. I like to use Droste brand, which I buy on Amazon. It is a little pricier, but worth it.
Coconut Milk Powder
It may sound like a strange thing to add to a cookie, but there is a method to my madness. For a lot of my cookies, I like to add milk powder. The milk powder just adds a little oomph to that soft, chewy center of a cookie. Since I took dairy out of the equation, I needed another milk to add to these cookies. You can buy soy milk powder, but I try to avoid soy products. So I came to coconut milk powder.
Coconut milk powder is pretty easy to find and gives you that little bit of fat and moisture that you would get from regular old dairy milk powder.
Chopped Dark Chocolate
I do not use a lot of chocolate chips. I have them, but they are mostly for my snacking purposes. For cookies, I always use chopped chocolate. Why? Variety. By chopping the chocolate, you get some big pieces, some little. The little ones melt into the dough, the big ones create a pool of melted chocolate that you stumble across in a each bite. Buy your favorite dark chocolate bars and chop them up.
For this recipe, I used two types of chocolate, both vegan. Taza’s Almond Milk Chocolate gives you the texture and boosted sweetness of milk chocolate, but without the dairy. I also used my favorite 70% dark chocolate from Taza, which provides that slight bitter, fruity flavor added to this dough.
Do you have to use these chocolates? No, use what you like. They are your cookies.
Speaking of cookies; let’s bake! And please tag me in any and all of your remakes and @ me!
Recipe
Yield: about 10 large cookies, 18 smaller cookies
80g (about 1/3 cup) tahini (Soom Foods is the best btw)
55g (about 1/4 cup) refined coconut oil, melted
16g (2 tbsp) olive oil
135g (3/4 cup) coconut sugar
27g (3 tbsp) agave nectar
1 large egg
35g (3tbsp) warm coffee (do not use cold coffee; it will seize up the coconut oil)
45g (5 tbsp) dutch-process cocoa powder
81g (1/2 cup) teff flour
35g (1/4 cup) oat flour
40g (1/4 cup) potato starch
9g (1 tbsp) coconut milk powder (optional, but adds to the moist center)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
70g (about 1 cup, a big cup) chopped chocolate (I used Taza Almond Milk Chocolate and Taza 70% dark)
In a medium bowl, sift the cocoa flour into a medium bowl. If using the powdered coconut milk powder, sift it as well (it likes to lump). Add the flours, baking soda, and salt. Whisk them all together to combine. Set aside
In a large bowl, combine the tahini, melted coconut oil, olive oil, coconut sugar and agave nectar until smooth. Add the egg and whisk to combine. The mixture will seize up a bit (especially if the egg is cold), but that’s a-ok. Add the warm coffee and mix into the tahini-coconut-sugar mixture.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix together until almost all the flour is combined. Add the chopped chocolate and mix until all the flour is absorbed. Stash in the fridge to chill for an hour. It is worth it. The chill makes the cookies easier to scoop and gives the cocoa powder a chance to absorb some of the moisture.
Preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a cookie scoop (i like big cookies and I cannot lie, so I use a 2.5 tbsp scoop) to dollop the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes; don’t over bake! The middled should sink a little bit after they come out the oven. Let them cool for 15 minutes before you take a bite (though worth it to burn your tongue for these).
Store covered, at room temperature, for a week.