Tahini Cookies Three Ways

There are infinite ways to finish off this recipe with your own personal touch. I fully encourage such experiments, and I offer you one of my weird variations here for a little idea of what you could do. The ground recipe is the same.

Tahini Cookie Dough (Ground Recipe)
1/3 cup tahini
¼ cup sugar beet syrup or other syrupy sweetener
¼ cup ground hazelnuts
½ cup rice flour (plus a few tbsp)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp margarine (optional)
1 tbsp water or as needed

Mix the tahini, syrup, and margarine, if using.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, then add them to the wet and mix. If it is too dry to come together into a ball, add some water and try again. If it is a bit too oily (mine was, after the addition of margarine) add the extra flour.

For simple Diamond Cookies, roll the dough out on a floured board to about 1/4 inch thick and slice into diamond shapes. Then bake for about 15 minutes at 350 F (175 C), or until they are just touched with color on the edges. Careful, these over-cook quickly!

Oatmeal-Style Raisin Tahini Cookies

These involve no oats, but they sure remind me of the delicious oatmeal cookies my mom used to make...chewy, fruity, hearty, and best still warm from the oven.

To the ground recipe, add:
2 large carrots, grated
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup raisins

Adjust the flour-water ratio as needed to get a thick, but workable, cookies dough.
Roll 1 tbsp of the dough into a ball, then flatten it into a cookie shape and repeat for the rest. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned and firm enough to hold together. Let cool on a rack (barely) and enjoy :)
Also check out the directions for Dessert Sushi to see another adaptation of this ground recipe.