Black Sesame Green Tea Cookie Sandwiches

So I took a little hiatus last week, and I wish I could tell you it was because I went on a really cool exotic vacation, or because I was assisting on a ton of food shoots, but unfortunately it is nothing so glamorous. I was absent last week due to a little camping mishap last weekend.

I was up early on last sunday morning, so I set about making myself a cup of tea on our camp stove, using our little backpacking pot. When the water boiled I took the lid off the pot and went to remove it from the stove, at which point I caught the bottom of the pot on the top of the stove and tipped the entire pot of boiling water straight down the front of my legs. Naturally, I screamed bloody murder, jumped over the picnic table bench I had been standing behind, and ripped off all my clothes from the waist down in the middle of a public camping ground. And then things got really ugly, which is also the right word to describe the current state of my thighs. 

Needless to say, I burned the heck out of myself. S sprung into action, pouring all of our remaining drinking water all over my legs, and making me cold compresses from the melting ice water in the cooler. Unfortunately for me, S does not know how to drive, so we were stuck there until I pulled myself together enough to pack my leg with bags of ice and drive back to Manhattan. Consequently I spent most of this last week going to the doctor, buying gauze, trying to figure out how to wrap the gauze so it doesn't all slowly slide back down my thighs, and sitting on the couch trying not to think about my legs and potential scarring. 

However, it was also S's birthday on Tuesday, and I wanted to make him something sweet. I had planned on making a matcha cheesecake with black sesame cream on top because S loves loves loves matcha, but my current limp and inability to bend over at the waist made cooking anything too labor intensive out of the question. 

Then I remembered I hadn't shared this black sesame cookie recipe with you after serving them at my creative meetup, and I knew they would be lovely paired with some green tea frosting. Sort of like an oreo, only much, much better. 

Typically when I make a recipe like this I try to find ways to reduce the amount of sugar, or to replace it with honey or maple syrup or dates, but I'm injured. I want comfort food. I want full fat, full-of-sugar buttercream frosting.  This is not one of my healthier, paleo-friendly dishes. There are three sticks of butter in this recipe. Three.

S loved these birthday cookies. I think their deliciousness helped him take in stride the blow of finding out there wasn't going to be a green tea cheesecake. Atleast not this week. There has been very little cooking besides these cookies this week. The cookies are definitely a bit addicting. Every time I walk by the fridge I tend to open it up and grab two, one for me, and one for S. 

The cookie base is based on an adapted recipe from Just One Cookbook, and I love them with the icing or even plain on their own. The original recipe calls for whole black sesame seeds, so if you can't find black sesame powder, you could definitely give it a whirl with whole seeds. I buy my black sesame powder at a Chinese grocery store in my neighborhood, but since every grocery store in my neighborhood is Chinese, I'm not sure how easy it is to source outside of this region. Whole black sesame seeds would work just fine though, and those can be bought at most grocery stores, in the spice aisle.

Black Sesame Green Tea Cookie Sandwiches

Black Sesame Cookies:

1 Stick Butter

1/3 C almond meal

1 C flour

2/3 C sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 C black sesame powder

1 tsp almond extract

1 egg yolk

1-2 tbsp milk

Matcha Buttercream:

2 sticks butter

1 1/2 C confectioners sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

2 tbsp matcha powder

1/2 tsp almond extract

Cube the butter, then pop it in the fridge or freezer to stay firm while you prep the other ingredients.

In the bowl of a food processor (or in a medium sized mixing bowl), combine the flour, almond meal, sesame powder, sugar, and salt. Process until thoroughly combined. Add the chilled butter cubes and the almond extract, then process again, until the butter is well worked into the dry ingredients. The result will be a dry , crumbly mixture that will stick together if you mush it. 

Add the egg yolk and process one more time to combine. Dump the mixture out into a bowl and mix a bit more to help the dough come together. I find my dough is typically a bit dry (depending on how large my egg yolk was), and usually I need to add some milk. Add milk 1 tbsp at a time, mixing well to combine, until a dough forms that is still pretty dry, but which you can mold into a ball without it crumbling apart. Typically I add 2 tbsp of milk, 1 at a time. 

Form the dough into a ball, divide the ball in half, then place a sheet of plastic wrap on your workspace, and on top of it, form 1 half of the dough into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge, repeat process with the 2nd log. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. 

If you're concerned about keeping your logs totally round to ensure the roundest cookies, take the dough out of the fridge after an hour or two and roll it again, gently, focusing on rolling out the flattened areas, then pop it back in the fridge. The trick is to do this quickly so the dough stays firm and doesn't re-flatten in the fridge.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F, remove 1 log of dough from the fridge at a time, then unwrap and slice dough into about 1/6" - 1/4" slices. Place on a parchment paper lined (or a buttered) cookie sheet, about 1/2" apart and back for 8-10 minutes, until they are just barely turning golden on the edges. Put any leftover dough log back in the fridge until it's time to slice and bake it.

While dough is baking make the buttercream. Place the softened butter into the bowl of your stand mixer, or in a large bowl, add 1/2 sugar and using your stand mixer, or an electric hand mixer, beat the sugar and butter until very creamy and smooth. Add the 2nd half of the sugar and beat again. Add the matcha powder, almond extract, and milk and beat again until totally smooth. 

Match up cookies into pairs by size and shape, then spread the bottom of 1 cookie with green tea frosting, and place another cookie (bottom side towards the frosting) on top. Refrigerate 30 minutes to 1 hour to firm up the icing, then serve fresh from the fridge. They are fine at room temp too, but the frosting is a bit softer and messier when not chilled, plus S and I sampled them fresh vs. chilled and agreed we liked them best chilled!