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Black Sesame Sugar Cookies with Lemon Curd

A few weekends ago, Erlend and I headed over to the Inner Richmond neighborhood to pick up his surprise Princess Cake for my birthday and to do some grocery shopping in the hood's cheap Asian supermarkets. Wandering down Clement Street is a treat in itself — the avenue is lined with dim sum shops full of shelves containing fresh hand-pulled noodles and sesame balls, as well as Chinese rotisseries proudly displaying Peking duck and slabs of golden, roasted pork.

On a whim, we wandered into a nondescript store that advertised xiao long bao soup dumplings and nothing more. Inside was a whole display case offering not only every type of dumpling imaginable (soup or otherwise!), but also a multitude of buns. Steamed pork, lotus paste, or egg yolk buns — there they all were, gleaming at us invitingly. In my excitement, I ordered my default: xiao long bao soup dumplings and a red bean-filled sesame ball. Erlend, always the more patient of us two, took his time to consider all the options available and walked away with zhir ma bao, a steamed bun filled with black sesame paste.

I've always considered myself pretty well-versed in Chinese food (since Chinese cuisine in general tends to be my favorite food), but I'd never had anything like the black sesame paste bun before. The black sesame paste inside almost had the texture and taste of Middle Eastern halva, but made with Chinese black sesame seeds instead of the white ones used for tahini. One bite and I was obsessed —I had forgotten how good black sesame dessert could be! Despite the fact that we'd finished our shopping, I made Erlend go back to the store with me so I could pick up a giant bag of black sesame seeds to play with:


I've made black sesame desserts before (most notably, these black sesame buttermilk rolls with goat milk glaze), but it's easy to forget about the ingredient as it's always being overshadowed by matcha, the dessert ingredient du jour. This time, I ended up making black sesame sugar cookies instead of steamed buns, mostly because I left my bamboo steamer back in Portland and, truth be told, my bun folding and rolling skills could use some work.

The cookies themselves, however, are an homage to the buns we discovered that morning — unapologetically black sesame flavored, with nothing else to hide the unique toasty, woody flavor of black sesame. Although I loved the cookies on their own, I decided to brighten them up with a little dollop of fresh, homemade lemon curd:


The two are an odd flavor combination at first, but you'll soon find that the tart sweetness of the lemon is actually a brilliant companion to the heavy black sesame.

And don't worry! As for those zhir ma bao buns that I talked about with such wonder, I'm working on a recipe, I swear. But let's eat these cookies first.


Some baker's notes:

• Black sesame seeds are available in the bulk sections of fancy grocery stores like Whole Foods, or Asian specialty supermarkets. You can also find them online.


• If you want to break down the cooking time, you can make the lemon curd up to 1 month in advanced! The curd keeps well in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator.


• The cookie recipe starts by instructing you on how to make black sesame sugar using an oven and a food processor, thanks to this utterly genius recipe by Mandy of Lady and Pups. The recipe will make slightly more than what's needed for the rolls, and you can store whatever's leftover in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month (similarly, you can make the sugar in advanced for up to 1 month). It's important to refrigerate the sugar since black sesame seeds have a ton of oil in them and go rancid fast. However, my leftover sugar never lasts that long — I often find myself reaching for it and stirring it into my green tea or coffee. You can also roll the raw cookie dough in a small bowl of extra sugar before baking to give the cookies a black sesame sugar glaze.
  

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Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:

•  4 large eggs
• 100 g cake flour 
• 40-50g ground black sesame powder
• 1/3 cup sugar + 4 tablespoon for the egg whites.
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil)
• 1/2 cup full fat milk 

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the black sesame powder and whisk the dry ingredients well to make sure they are thoroughly combined. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.


2. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks until pale yellow add the vegetable oil slowly. Continue beating until the mixture turns slightly thick.


3. Pour the egg yolks into the well, mix gently and add the milk. Beat the wet ingredients into the dry until completely smooth.


4. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites until foamy. With the mixer running, slowly rain in the remaining 4 tablespoon sugar. Continue to beat the whites until stiff peaks form when the beater is lifted.


5. Fold the beaten whites into the rest of the batter by gently spoon one-third at the time. Fold in the white slowly and carefully using a spatula. Be very gentle as you fold in the whites so you not deflate them. Gently fold in the remaining third of the whites. Spoon or gently pour the batter into a 10-inch ungreased angel food cake pan.


6. Place the pan in the middle of the oven and bake for 45 minutes at 160C (325F), and a toothpick inserted into the comes out clean.


7. Remove from heat and invert the pan over an inverted cup. Set the pan aside until cooled completely, 1 to 2 hours.

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Black Sesame Steamed Cupcake

Its one of those weekends you wake up to the sounds of the rain and traffic. You try hard to re-enter the world of dreams but alas, your mind is filled with messy and scrambled thoughts - like a fuzzy TV with bad reception.


I also found some left over sweet red-beans in the fridge and decided that perhaps, theyd make a good match with the black sesame. And they did!

Within 20 minutes, I had several steamed goodies in front of me. Right this moment, everything seems to be falling into place. The piping hot steamed cakes were soft like bread, full of strong black sesame flavours and just plain simple. And sometimes, isnt it usually the simple things in our daily lives that cause us to pause - and feel content and grateful for the moment?

All of a sudden -  I didnt want it to rain anymore. No hot chocolate, thank you.

Quickly pulled my favourite jumper over my head. Rain or shine, Melbourne - here I come!


Steamed Black Sesame Cupcakes
Makes 6 cupcakes

• 1 large egg
• 30g sugar (I used brown)
• 1/4 cup of milk (or yoghurt)
• 1 tablespoon grapeseed oil (can use other oil like canola or olive)
• 60g flour
• 50g cooked/sweetened red beans (optional)
• 20g black sesame powder (you can get it from most Asian grocery stores)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

1. In a bowl, beat the egg lightly then add the sugar and mix well.

2. Then add the milk into the mixture as well as the grapeseed oil. Beat well.

3. Sieve the flour, and baking powder then combine with the black sesame powder. Incorporate into the egg mixture and mix well.

4. Finally incorporate the red-bean into batter and mix gently (or you can keep the red bean separate from the batter and ladle it in between the batter as I did)

5. Ladle the batter into 6 separate cupcake/panna cotta containers which are lined with cupcake liners/muffin cups.

6. In a large pot (or cast iron casseroles), fill it with enough boiling hot water such that when you put the cupcakes in, the water comes about half way on the mould. Steam for around 13-15 minutes with the lid on. I prefer to wrap a cloth/towel on the lid to prevent water droplets dropping onto the cupcakes.

7. Carefully remove from pot as they cupcakes will be steaming hot!

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