As great as they are, chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles sometimes feel tired. They’re reliable standards, but the cookie world can be so much more. Therefore, in 2019, Shiri and Jamie will embark on the Great Cookie Challenge – a shared exploit during which we try to make 50 new-to-us cookies. Grab a glass of milk and your spirit of cookie adventure.

Cookie #3: Barek (Sweet Sesame Snaps) (Shiri)

This recipe is from The Immigrant Cookbook: Recipes That Make America Great, edited and collected by Leyla Moushabeck (and published by Interlink Books). This exact recipe is by Dalia Mortada (p. 174). Origin: Syria.

I bake a fair bit, but there was an ingredient I didn’t recognize in this recipe: malab or ground St. Luke’s Cherry Seeds. I did a web search to find out where one might be able to obtain malab and didn’t come up with much. My guess, as a toxicology nurse, is that, because ground cherry seeds contain cyanide, they’re difficult to buy in the United States. Keep in mind the amount in the recipe is minute, and it would be highly unlikely to harm you or anyone in your family but, since it’s an optional ingredient anyway, you may as well not stress yourself out looking for it.

I really enjoyed these cookies. They have some resting time for the dough and a little bit longer baking time than most I’m used to. The consistency it more akin to that of a dense cake than a chewy American cookie but I quite liked it. They are super sweet on their own, so I wouldn’t recommend making them without the sesame seeds or the nuts, though you could probably sub in if there’s an allergen issue or if someone dislikes either sesame seeds or pistachios. I’d think anything with a little bit of a toasty taste or a stronger, perhaps slightly salty flavor would do nicely.

Sesame seeds, for example, failed to make it into our shopping cart last week, so I used charmulla, or nigella, seeds instead. It was a decent substitute, though charmulla is a little more bitter and savory than sesame and if I were to use them again, I’d toast the seeds a bit more and use fewer of them.

That said, they went pretty quick at the office, and one of the docs told me they tasted like his grandmother’s version of the same cookie. High praise indeed!