Benne Wafers


Benne Wafers

Please give a warm welcome to one of my dearest friends, Steve-Anna Stephens, who is guest authoring this post of one of her favorite recipes for the Southern classic, benne wafers. Steve-Anna sent us a tin of these cookies and we devoured them. So good! ~Elise

When I was a little girl growing up in Alabama, every year our family would get a Christmas gift in the mail from Charleston. Amidst the usual holiday mayhem, no one really paid a lot of attention to the tin of benne wafer cookies that emerged from the package – except for me.

While everyone else was busy indulging themselves with homemade Christmas fudge and stocking candies, I was stealthily and systematically emptying the tin of benne wafers. As I recall, the round, flat cookies were arranged in stacks in paper liners around the tin.

Instead of eating a whole stack of cookies from top to bottom, I would eat one from the top of each stack, hoping no one would notice how many had actually gone missing.
83ZZF2KQ7HGB

The draw for me then, and now, is the combination of three flavors: the nutty taste of the toasted benne (sesame) seeds, a hint of salt, and the caramel sweet flavor from the brown sugar – a chewy crunchy dessert trifecta.

Sesame seed cookies, or benne seed cookies as we call them in the South, are a classic South Carolina tradition. It is believed that enslaved Africans brought benne seeds to Colonial America sometime in the 17th century.

After trying several recipes in search of one that lived up to my recollection (including a number of recipes from my stash of Southern cookbooks), my favorite comes from Gullah Net. In South Carolina, communities of people descended from enslaved Africans are referred to as Gullah communities.


Benne Wafers Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 cup sesame seeds, toasted
  • 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/8 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract


Read More: Benne Wafers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Easy Blender Hollandaise Sauce

Image
Many people are afraid of hollandaise sauce, are you? Some think eating it will make them fat. (It will if you eat it every day, so don’t eat it every day.) If you are like me, the thought of making hollandaise conjures up visions of toque clad chefs with big bowls and even bigger whisks swearing because the beautiful sauce they have spent the last several minutes vigorously whisking has separated on them, “Merde!” I have been desperately afraid of making this sauce since forever. (Not afraid of eating it mind you, I’ve never met an eggs benedict I didn’t like, or eat.) To overcome this fear I asked my friend Hank to show me how to make it. OMG. Hank’s hollandaise didn’t separate, and he didn’t swear (any more than usual), but the work! The beads of sweat forming on this man’s forehead as he whipped those egg yolks and butter into submission. I was dreading the attempt. Hank has arms of steel. I have arms of, hmmm, a young, willo...
Read more

Perfect Cheesecake

Image
Looking for the perfect cheesecake? It takes a bit of hubris to describe a recipe as “perfect”, especially for a recipe such as cheesecake, for which so many have their own personal favorite. But, this is simply the best, most wonderful cheesecake I have ever had, and have ever made. It is based on a master recipe, from the master of baking herself, Dorie Greenspan. It is a classic New York style cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and high sides. It is dense, rich, and light at the same time, and serves a small army. But watch out—just when you think you’ve made enough for your gathering, so many people will go back for seconds that you may be left without a piece! My young friend Audrey and I made some slight changes to Dorie’s base recipe. We’ve thickened the graham crust on the bottom and doesn’t let it ride up the sides. We also top the cake with a creamy sour cream topping and serves it with a tangy bright raspbe...
Read more