Vegan Lemon Tahini Cookies are Gluten free and are some of the tastiest, moist cookies you will ever taste. Did I mention they can be made in 20 minutes flat?
I pulled the tray of glowing Beyoncé hued cookies from the oven and set them carefully on the counter to cool. Each crackled cookie shimmered with a sprinkling of pale golden sesame seeds and saturated the air with a sweet tahini breeze. The wait was interminable. Finally I hefted a caramel toned cookie to my lips and took a bite. Crumbley, sweet, slightly metallic, a fresh citrus tang, with bursts of sesame seeds. Halva, it tastes like lemon halva.
“One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie
A girl so sweet that when she smiled, the stars rose in the sky
We passed that summer lost in love, beneath the lemon tree
The music of her laughter hid my father’s words from me”
-Peter, Paul and Mary
These are the cookies I would nibble with dark Turkish coffee. These are the cookies I would munch at midnight. These are the cookies I would serve to the queen of Denmark with a pot of Earl Grey tea.
Peanut-butter Cookies are great. These are better. Much better.
My girl Livy has taken to eating these vegan tahini cookies with a smashed pitted Medjool date sandwiched between two cookies. She says it tastes like a caramel Halva sandwich. Who doesn’t want to eat one of those?!
Vegan Lemon Tahini Cookies are perfect for dunking in cold Soy milk.
“sun-drenched Sicilian lemons squeezed of their juice and mingled with juniper from the frozen north. Saffron threads and gold leaf from the Indies waited to be turned into something magical. And contained deep within all of this was a smile that flooded him with warmth, a pair of blue eyes, and the scent of chocolate…”
– Laura Madeleine, The Confectioner’s Tale
“Tahini, Ta-hee-ni, What is this Tahini they keep mentioning“, says my mother in law flipping through the Savour magazine brought in my carry on.
“Umm it is Tahina (pronounced tchina), the stuff you put on everything” I say
“Aaaah” Big smile
Not all tahini is equally good. Buy from a Middle Eastern store. I find the more expensive the tahini the less authentic. I have bought before in Whole Foods and been disappointed. If you can’t find any near you this brand of tahini is good.
Check out my Aquafaba page! For tips, tricks and to see all of my Aquafabulous recipes.
Aromatic crumbly cookies packed with sesame, both seeds and tahini. These are my new favorite cookies.
- 1 cup tahini
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup raw sesame seeds, plus 2 tbsp for sprinkling.
- 1/4-1/3 cup garbanzo bean flour
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla
- zest from one lemon
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Line two baking trays with parchment.
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In a medium bowl combine the tahini, sugar, sesame seeds, lemon juice, zest, vanilla extract, baking powder. Stir until fully combined.
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Now add enough garbanzo bean (chickpea) flour to form a fairly firm cookie dough. If my tahini is runny I add the whole 1/3 in increments until my dough is nice and pliable, similar to the texture of peanut butter cookie dough.
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Scoop out a one tbsp measure of dough, roll it into a ball between your palms. Then press them to a 1/2 inch disk on the parchment. Continue until you have used up all of the dough leaving a 2 inch space around each cookie.
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Bake for 14 to 15 minutes (switching the pans halfway through) until your cookies are golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool ten minutes before eating.
I love these! It’s like sweet hummus in cookie form, so creative ❤️
I love your description. Sweet Hummus will be the name of my band.
I love your blog… Yes, recipe is superb but i love the way you played with the light in your photographs…
have a lot to learn from you 🙂
Priya, Thank you for the complement I got lucky with a particularly golden day. I adore your blog.
Hey – this is a wonderful recipe. I wondered if there is a way to substitute the sugar with a healthier option – e.g. honey/maple syrup or will that be too wet?
That is a great idea Sibel. I haven’t tried to yet..Let me know if you manage to substitute the sugar with a healthier option.
I just tried this recipe with honey with some success! Unfortunately, I only had a half cup of tahini so my entire recipe was cut in half. Substituting honey made the dough super runny, so I (maybe more than) tripled the chickpea flour. The dough never “rolled.” I just spooned it onto the cookie sheet. The cookies turned out nicely after 15 minutes but fell apart easily. Five more minutes in the oven made them more crisp, which I thought was an improvement for this flavor of cookie. If I attempted this again I would add still more flour… or just use granulated sugar 🙂
Interesting experiments! Thanks for sharing. Perhaps if you purreed dates and subbed some of the honey the texture would hold together better.
I made these, They are truly delicious. Thank you so much.
I’m so glad you liked them. Cheers!
These were delicious… would the recipe work if I significantly reduced the sugar or substituted with a different sweetener source?
I’m glad you enjoyed them. I’m not sure if you could switch out the sugar and still the same texture. If you try please let me know.
The taste was ok, but the cookies were very crumbly.
Love the creative recipe with these lovely ingredients though, so I hope I can make it work another time. Tips anyone?
Oh I’m so sorry this didn’t work out for you. One tip I have is to stir the tahini very well or else you end up with super oily tahini at the top of the jar and super dry and crumbly at the bottom.
I wanted to make these but had to use what I had on hand…coconut sugar instead of white, black sesame seeds instead of white ones, and I only had 3/4 cup of tahini so I added almond butter to make up the difference.
They were darker than the picture, they spread out a bit while cooking. But oh boy, were they good! I still want to make them when I have all these ingredients, but my boyfriend insists he wants my version again.
My oh My! Your version sounds scrumptious! The next time I have all those ingredients I’ll be copying your recipe. Thank you for sharing.
Just made these with poppyseeds, delicious! They did turn out very crumbly, but I’m not sure if I didn’t put enough tahini… Thanks for sharing
Oh poppyseed sound like a lovely addition. Tahinis vary from brand to brand and it is also important to stir the whole jar well before using. I’d crumble those lemon poppyseed babies on icecream.
Can you sub the chickpea flour for something else?
So sorry just saw your messages. I think almond flour would do in a pinch.