tahini halva brownies

tahini halva brownies

• 9 Sept 2024

A long time ago I read an article by a food writer lamenting that her children couldn't nominate a 'favourite dish' that she made for them but they could for their Dad. She was a bit taken aback before she realised the reason. Dad had a small repertoire of dishes that were on repeat while she constantly presented new dishes to her family and rarely remade dishes. 

It's a bit the same with me these days, as every week I try and make something new. Favourites wouldn't be favourites though without good reason so I've decided to revisit a few of my tried and true recipes and today it's tahini halva brownie's turn.

I've made these before and every-one loves them but instead of the Ottolenghi version, I turned to Claire Ptak's recipe from her book, Love is a Pink Cake. The recipes aren't all that different but Claire's uses spelt flour instead of plain flour. I didn't have any spelt flour, so I looked through the cupboards and came up with a combination of flours I thought would go well with the tahini, chocolate and halva. I used some rye flour, plain flour and a little tapioca starch to ensure the brownies stayed squidy.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 8 tahini halva brownies. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Tahini Halva Brownies adapted from Love is a Pink Cake by Claire Ptak
Ingredients
125g unsalted butter
125g dark chocolate
2 eggs
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
70g spelt flour (I used 20g tapioca starch, 25g rye flour and 25g plain flour)
25g cocoa powder
Pinch salt
50g tahini paste
112g vanilla or marbled chocolate halva, broken into 1 cm pieces
Generous pinch sea salt flakes

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Butter and line a 7x7 inch cake tin with baking paper.

Put the butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Stir occasionally until the mixture has melted completely. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until combined, taking care not to over whisk; the idea here is not to add too much air. Stir the eggs into the cooled chocolate mixture with the vanilla extract, then sift in the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Fold all together then pour into your prepared tin.

Drizzle the tahini over the top of the brownie mixture then gently run a knife across the surface to marble it. Dot with halva pieces then sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 23-25 minutes in the preheated 180°C, conventional oven but start checking for doneness at 22 minutes.The brownies should be just set but still wobbly. Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into rectangles.

Baker’s tip: Remember that brownies continue to bake while they cool down. It is always a good idea to err on the side of caution and remove the baked goods just before you think they are done to avoid overbaking and to keep that lovely gooey texture. 

The brownies went down a treat at work and I think everyone was glad I'd made them - the true definition of a favourite recipe I guess.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian