Pine Nut & Sesame Seed Dunkers – Cookies

I was reading some Waitrose Magazines and came across a very enticing, and simple, recipe for Pine Nut and Sesame Seed Dunkers.  Dunking, for those who don’t know, is dipping a biscuit or cookie in tea or coffee.  In the UK we love to dunk our biscuits, so this seemed like a great recipe to try.  The recipe is also on the Waitrose website.  

The recipe makes 20 biscuits, but is not a large amount of dough, so I used the processor on my hand blender which worked well.  But a normal food processor will be fine too, especially if you double up the recipe.

Now as well as being a lovely biscuit the recipe suggests making a slit in the biscuits as soon as they come out of the oven, with a skewer, going half way across each one, so that you can rest them over the lip of a cup.  I found that a small knife worked better than a skewer, and having made the slit I pulled it open a little.  This obviously needs to be done before the cookies have cooled and hardened.

With a crisp outside, and a nice chewy centre, courtesy of golden syrup, these really taste great.  Of course baking a little longer and the centres will firm up too.  But I enjoyed them just as they were.

As a easy to make recipe, these are ideal, and you don’t even have to bother with making the slits in them, they will taste just as good. 

Ingredients:

• 30g sesame seeds
• 120g plain flour
• 1/2tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 60g cold butter
• 60g light brown sugar
• 65g golden syrup
• 30g mixed chopped peel
• 40g pine nuts

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F
2. In a food processor whizz the sesame seeds for about 15 seconds, to release some of the oils.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and whizz again to mix in.
4. Add the butter and pulse the mixture until it has turned to a fine breadcrumb texture.
5. Add the sugar, golden syrup(you could use corn syrup), chopped peel and pine nuts.
6. Pulse again until the mixture all comes together.
7. Roll about 20g of mixture into walnut sized balls and place on a lined baking sheet, leaving a 3cm(1 1/4 inch) gap between them.
8. Bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes until they have spread and turned a nice golden colour.
9. Remove from the oven and, if you want to slit them, make a slit in each one, frm the centre out to the edge and spread it slightly to make a larger gap.
10. Allow to cool completely on the baking tray.