Dark Chocolate & Sweet Tahini Cups – Green Kitchen Stories

One unexpected side effect of Covid-19 is that the Tahini, Rye & Chocolate Cookies that we posted last year have made a comeback and become immensely popular in homes around the world and on instagram – viral if you like. Some people even started giving them the nickname quarantine cookies. These past two months we have been tagged in hundreds and hundreds of tahini cookies, and we have thoroughly enjoyed following along. I started sharing one cookie every day on my insta story calling it Tahini Cookie of the Day and I guess I will continue as long as they keep popping up in my feed.

While you have been baking cookies, we have been making dark chocolate and nut butter cups. These are very common in the US with brands like Reese\’s and Justin\’s (my fav!), a bit less so in Europe as we don\’t have the same peanut butter tradition here.
Luise and I have been making nut butter cup variations for years though but never bothered sharing them on this site because, well, they almost feel too easy. One of our more fun versions was peanut butter and jam cups. And a few months ago while making our Pumpkin Seed Butter, I sweetened some of it and made Swirled Pumpkin Seed Cups. But with the recent rising popularity of the tahini cookies, I thought it could be fun to share a tahini version of nut butter cups. You can make your own chocolate but in the current state of things – keeping things easy seems like the best idea.

I made a swirled version with sweetened tahini which tastes amazing, but the tahini was quite runny which made them kind of messy to eat. Traditional versions have a firmer nut butter filling – almost like it\’s mixed with flour and sugar. So I also tried a version only sweetened with dates and with a little cold water mixed into the tahini which opposite of what you might think, actually makes the tahini firmer (because oil and water don\’t like to hug). We couldn\’t decide which version we liked most so we posted a question on instagram that came out almost tied. So here we are, with two versions of this recipe. One which has a runnier filling (although when chilled it is firmer) and is sweetened with coconut sugar. And one with a firmer filling sweetened with dates. Flavorwise, the runnier is my favorite because coconut sugar enhances the tahini amazingly but both are good. Hope you enjoy them!

Ps! The runnier tahini is also great on pancakes, ice cream, porridges and sandwiches so make sure you have some left over 😉