Chanukah Gelt Cookies
Chocolate coins (Chanukah gelt) embedded in peanut/nut butter or tahini blossom cookies.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 180g
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt Kosher or fine sea
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons milk full, low-fat or nonfat
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 + 1/4 for rolling dough balls in cup white sugar 100g +50g
- 1/3 cup dark brown sugar (packed) 64 g
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature, 1 stick
- 3/4 cup good quality creamy peanut butter, other nut butter or tahini - spreadable, not gritty. Approximately 190 g. Note that if using tahini, try to make it as close as possible to the texture of a nut butter. That may mean using less oil and more of the hard, ground sesame seed mixture. (See note below about tahini brands.)
Instructions
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Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) together in a small bowl and set aside.
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Mix the egg, milk, and vanilla together in another small bowl and set aside.
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Combine the 1/2 cup of white sugar, the brown sugar, the butter and peanut butter, nut butter or tahini and beat with a hand or stand mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy. Start on a low setting and move up to medium-high, scraping the bowl 2-3 times during 3-5 minutes.
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Add the egg, milk, and vanilla mixture and combine.
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Add the dry ingredients in 3-4 batches, mixing on low each time, just until combined.
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Form the dough into one-inch balls and roll them in the reserved 1/4 cup (50g) sugar. If the dough is too soft, refrigerate it for 20-40 minutes before making the dough balls. Put all the balls on a plate and chill them in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, longer if necessary until they are well chilled and easily taken off the plate without losing their shape.
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Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. and unwrap the Chanukah gelt. If the coins are more than one-inch in circumference, cut them in half. Put the unwrapped coins in the refrigerator to chill until you need them.
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Place the cookie balls on two parchment or silicone mat-lined cookie sheets. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.
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Once the cookies are done, put them on wire racks. Let them cool for one minute then gently insert the coins, one or one-half into each cookie. Cool completely.
Recipe Notes
It may be challenging to find a tahini consistency that matches peanut or other nut butter. My preferred tahini brand, Soom, does not separate the oil and the ground sesame, and so it is too liquidy to be used on its own. Instead, I mixed some Soom tahini with the ground sesame paste (minus the oil that had separated and risen to the top) from another brand. The mixture worked fine. Another possibility is to use only a brand that has paste and oil separated and to mix in less sesame oil than
The chilling time may slightly longer than 1 hour or as short as 30 minutes. When they go into the oven, the dough balls should be well chilled and holding their shape.
Bittersweet chocolate coins are more difficult to cut than milk chocolate ones, but they do not melt as easily when inserted into the cookies.