These Black Sesame Cookies are buttery, nutty, crisp and so addicting. With a unique combination of sweet and savory flavors, they are delightful with a cup of morning coffee or afternoon tea. The perfect holiday cookies to make and gift!
Have you tried black sesame seeds in cookies before? With a rich nutty aroma and textures, black sesame is easily one of the most popular ingredients used in Japanese baked goods and confectionery.
These Black Sesame Cookies (黒胡麻クッキー) are buttery and nutty, and I’m sure you are going to fall in love with them.
Black Sesame Seeds in Japanese Cuisine
Know as the very first culinary spice, sesame seeds are widely used in Japanese, Chinese, and many other Asian cultures. In Japanese cooking, you can find sesame seeds being used to flavor desserts and sweets such as mochi, ice cream, cakes, cookies, muffins and more. Its uses are so dynamic that we use it in both sweet and savory dishes.
In this icebox cookie recipe, sesame seeds impart an incredibly rich aroma and nutty flavor that it’s impossible not to love.
What Makes This Cookie a Favorite?
- Buttery & crisp
- Unique, nutty flavor from the black sesame seeds
- A touch of savory in the cookies (not overly sweet)
- Easy to bake
- Festive looking from the crushed sesame seeds (like sparkles)
- Freezer-friendly (up to a month!) and ideal for holiday gifting
Just like the Matcha Cookies, they are equally popular and sold everywhere at bakeries in Japan.
Two Types of Flours in Sesame Cookies
I used both all-purpose flour and almond flour/ meal to give these cookies an enhanced nutty flavor and texture. You can find almond flour and almond meal in the market, and both work for this recipe.
The main difference between the two is that the almond meal is much more coarsely ground. You’d be able to see small brown specks of almond skins in the final result. Since the speckled look is what we are after, an almond meal is great for these sesame cookies.
My favorite brand, Bob’s Red Mill, carries both Natural Almond Meal and Almond Meal/Flour. You can also find almond meal at Trader Joe’s at a cheaper price.
I hope you enjoy these delicious sweet and savory Black Sesame Cookies. You can use white, black, or both sesame seeds for these cookies. My favorite is definitely the black ones!
More Easy Holiday Cookies You’ll Love:
- Matcha Green Tea Cookies
- Butter Cookies
- Cherry Blossom Cookies
- Meyer Lemon Cookies
- Chinese Almond Cookies
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Black Sesame Cookies
Ingredients
- 120 g unsalted butter (½ cup (8 Tbsp, 1 stick) + ½ Tbsp)
- 1⅓ cups all-purpose flour (plain flour) (weigh your flour or use the “fluff and sprinkle“ method and level it off)
- 40 g almond meal (¼ cup + 4 tsp; I used Trader Joe‘s almond meal)
- 6 Tbsp sugar
- ⅛ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 5 Tbsp toasted black sesame seeds
- 1 large egg yolk (You can add the whole egg instead of just the yolk. The difference is the texture of the final result. Cookies made with egg yolks would give the most crumbly, rich, crisp cookies. Many icebox cookies use only egg yolk to produce the texture.)
Instructions
- Before You Start: Gather all the ingredients. I highly encourage you to weigh your ingredients using a kitchen scale for this recipe. Click on the “Metric“ button at the top of the recipe to convert the ingredient measurements to metric. If you‘re using a cup measurement, please follow the “fluff and sprinkle“ method: Fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle the flour into your measuring cup, and level it off. Otherwise, you may scoop more flour than you need.
To Make the Dough
- Cut 120 g unsalted butter (½ cup + ½ Tbsp) into small cubes and keep them refrigerated until ready to use (I cut on parchment paper and wrap up the butter for easy transfer).
- In the food processor, combine 1⅓ cups all-purpose flour (plain flour), 40 g almond meal (¼ cup + 4 tsp), 6 Tbsp sugar, and ⅛ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt. If you don’t have a food processor, you can simply use a bowl to mix all the ingredients.
- If you want your 5 Tbsp toasted black sesame seeds to be of fine texture, add them now. If you prefer to keep the original shape of sesame seeds, add them with egg yolk later on.
- Take out the butter from the refrigerator, add to the food processor, and mix together. If you use a regular bowl to mix, use a dough/pastry blender to combine the butter into the dry ingredients.
- Lastly, add 1 large egg yolk.
- If the food processor is small (like mine) and it doesn’t look like it’s mixed completely, take it out and mix well with a silicone spatula.
- Form the dough into a ball and cut in half.
- Roll it to a log approximately 2 inches (5 cm) across. For me, it’s easier to work when the dough is wrapped in plastic wrap. While rolling, unwrap some parts of plastic wrap then roll again. Form a nice shape. I wasn‘t paying attention, so my log is flat on one side…
To Chill the Dough
- Wrap the logs tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least an hour (you can put them in the freezer to speed up the process as well).
To Bake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). For a convection oven, reduce cooking temperature by 25ºF (15ºC). Remove the dough from plastic wrap and cut into discs about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick (if you prefer thicker cookies, cut into discs about ½ inch (1.3 cm) and you get 20 cookies total).
- Place them on 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges. If you are baking in batches, make sure to keep the second batch in the refrigerator to chill until baking.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To Store
- Store cookies in an airtight container. Enjoy the cookies within 3 days while they are best, or keep them in the freezer for up to a month.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: The post was originally published on December 13, 2012. The content has been updated in January 2020.
Delicious!
Thank you, Tatiana! Happy Baking! ☺️
Deliciously crisp and nutty! I followed the recipe exactly using the metric measurements and a scale for accuracy. I had to add a splash of milk because the dough was crumbly and had a hard time coming together. I also forgot to take the cookies out a little early because my oven runs hot, but the cookies didn’t turn out too dry at all.
Hello, Isabel! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking experience with us.
The cookie dough takes a little longer to make than other doughs, but we’re delighted to hear they turned out excellent!
Thank you for your kind feedback.
Hi can I use just almond flour instead of all purpose flour??
man’s maple syrup instead of sugar?
Hi, Shikha. Thank you so much for taking the time to read Nami’s post and try out her recipe.
Almond flour can be substituted for all-purpose flour; however, the cookie texture will be different, and you may need to add an additional egg yolk for binding.
We hope this was helpful!
I had to add more butter because the dough was really dry. I also added toasted black sesame seeds with the egg and sprinkled white sesame seeds to top prior to baking. These were one of the most delicious cookies I have ever made. Thank you.
Hi, Ruth! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and providing feedback!
We are glad to hear that you enjoyed the sesame cookies!
This dough takes longer to come together, so please mix it for longer on your next attempt. You might not need to add any additional butter the next time.🙂 We hope this helps!
This dough is WAY too dry. I had to add water to get it to even begin to stick. One log never held its shape – ended up with cookie crumbles. Flavor was OK though.
Hi Jennifer! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
We are sorry to hear that you had difficulty mixing the cookie dough. This dough takes longer to come together than other cookie recipes. So, when you try again, we recommend giving it a longer mixing time. When the butter and other ingredients are thoroughly combined, they will come together.
We hope this helps and that you will try again.🙂
Thank you so much for the wonderful recipe! I have made the cookies several times in the last few years and they’ve always been a hit! One question, is it okay to use room temperature butter instead of cold? I don’t have a food processor so have been making the dough with a spatula and it takes a lot of work to get through the cold butter and looks like from other ice box cookie recipes, they use room temperature butter. How much will the texture of the cookies be affected by using cold vs room temperature butter?
Thank you!
Hello, April! Aww. Thank you for using a spatula to make this cookie. It must have taken a lot of effort to put it all together.
The purpose of using cold butter is to ensure that it blends evenly with the other ingredients in the food processor. So. Yes. In your case, room-temperature butter makes sense, and mixing it should be much easier. The texture would not make much of a difference in this recipe.
We hope this was helpful!
I would like to bake this recipe to a friend, however due to allergies she is now vegan. What is the alternative ingredients that I can use for this please?
Thank you
Hi Rod! Thank you for reading Nami’s post and trying her recipe!
We are sorry that we have never tried this with vegan egg and butter, but it may work.
Please let us know how it goes if you give it a try!
Is there any alternative for almond flour cuz my daughter is allergic to nuts
Hi Gloria! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
We haven’t tried it, but Semolina flour (add some texture to the cookie) or all-purpose flour (plain flour) should work. You might need to add one egg to get the right texture.
We hope this helps!
I made these cookies back in June when I went to visit my friend (I made the dough beforehand and took the chilled dough in their plastic tootsie roll wrappers to bake at her house).
Unfortunately I did have trouble getting the dough to come together with just the one yolk, so I ended up adding the white from that egg and another whole egg to get the dough to come together! The rest of the ingredients were exactly as specified and I measured in grams (doing the conversion each time because I hadn’t figured out yet how to change the units on my kitchen scale haha). However the eggs were from my mom’s backyard chickens so they may not have been a standard egg. The issue may have been technique on my part though I definitely mixed for quite some time. I will try again in the future to see if my result is different!
Despite that, the cookies turned out really well! They weren’t too stiff at all, just enough egg white to hold together, and we loved the black sesame flavor and that they were not too sweet. I’m addicted to the black sesame red bean mochi you can get at Uwajimaya, so I was excited to try these cookies, and they were delicious!
Hi Kendall! Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe and sharing your baking experience.
As you mentioned, the egg size might be different from the stander size, but this cookie dough takes some time to come together. We hope you will give it a few more minutes to mix the dough next time to see if it makes a difference.
We hope this helps!
I made this recipe with white sesame seeds, almond flour rather than almond meal, and after reading so many comments about how hard it was fir everything to stick together (I also didn’t have any food processor ir anything) I decided to use a whole egg and add a tablespoon of water. Everything stuck together beautifully and I had no issues at all. the cookies are absolutely delicious and I’m so excited to share them! Next time I might want a little bit more salt but I think I just really like salty sweet things haha
Hi Rook! Thank you very much for trying this recipe and sharing your tip and experience with us!
We are glad to hear you enjoyed Cookies.🙂
Hi Namiko-San, is it okay to use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour? How would the cookies turn out?
Hi CoconutPi, Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
We have not tried this recipe with whole wheat flour before and are unsure how the outcome will be. Normally, whole wheat flour results in a denser texture.
Let us know how it goes if you try it!