Chocolate brownies have plenty going for them without another ingredient competing for attention. But tahini offers an interesting change: sesame flavor swirled through a dark chocolate batter, creating a marbled top and a different direction from the usual walnuts or chocolate chips. In Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s tahini-and-halva brownies, chunks of halva join the mixture, making sesame a central flavor rather than an afterthought.
The recipe comes from Sweet, the pair’s 2017 baking cookbook, and makes 16 brownies. It is a homemade dessert with a few deliberate stages, melting chocolate, whisking eggs and sugar, folding the batter and adding the swirl, not a one-bowl shortcut. The appeal is the combination: familiar chocolate richness alongside a sesame component that makes the finished squares look and taste different from a standard batch.
Tahini and Chocolate Make a More Interesting Pair Than You Might Expect
Tahini is a sesame paste, and it plays a different role than the sweet halva folded into the batter. The recipe uses both: halva in small chunks throughout the chocolate mixture, followed by spoonfuls of tahini swirled across the top. They are not interchangeable ingredients. Leaving out one or substituting extra amounts of the other would change the published formula rather than reproduce the same brownie with fewer shopping items.
The authors’ enthusiasm for the pairing is unmistakable. “The combination of tahini, halva and chocolate is so good that some members of staff … had to put a temporary personal ban on eating these particular brownies during the making of this book,” they write in the recipe introduction. That is their affectionate account of recipe development, not a blind-tasting result, but it explains why this combination earned its place in the collection.
Dark chocolate is important to the formula. The recipe calls for 70% cocoa solids chocolate, supported by Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Butter, eggs, sugar and flour supply the rest of the brownie structure, while the sesame additions give it its defining variation. This is still a rich dessert, not a nutritional makeover simply because tahini is involved. Its attraction is flavor and texture, without needing a “better-for-you” claim to justify another square.
The marbling makes the contrast visible, too. Instead of blending the tahini completely into the batter, the instructions call for about 12 small dollops, drawn through the mixture with a skewer. That keeps the surface patterned rather than uniformly brown. It is a finishing technique that looks decorative without requiring frosting, piping equipment or the patience to produce identical designs on individual portions.
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Follow One Formula From the Mixing Bowl to the Pan
For a clear starting point, the current recipe on Ottolenghi’s website uses 250 grams each of unsalted butter and 70% dark chocolate, four large eggs, 280 grams of caster sugar, 120 grams of plain flour, 30 grams of Dutch-processed cocoa and one-half teaspoon of salt. The sesame components are 200 grams of halva, broken into roughly three-quarter-inch pieces, and 80 grams of tahini. These are the quantities used for the method described here.
Heat the oven to 200°C conventional or 180°C fan;the American cookbook excerpt published by TASTE specifies 400°F. Grease and line a nine-inch-square pan with baking parchment. The official recipe also permits a roughly 12-by-eight-inch rectangular pan, with a slightly shorter baking time. Because the two published versions use different measurement systems and rounded quantities, choose one complete formula rather than converting some ingredients while borrowing others from another page.
Place the butter and broken chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water, keeping the bowl’s base above the water. Let them melt for about two minutes, remove the bowl from the heat and stir until shiny. Set the mixture aside to reach room temperature. That cooling step is part of the published sequence, so there is no need to rush hot melted chocolate straight into the eggs.
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until pale and creamy, with a trail left when the whisk moves through the mixture. The recipe estimates about three minutes with an electric mixer and longer by hand. Fold in the cooled chocolate mixture gently, then sift in the flour, cocoa and salt and fold again. Finally, fold through the halva pieces before spreading the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
Dollop the tahini in about 12 places and use a skewer to create a marbled effect, dragging it toward the edges. The goal is to distribute the tahini without stirring it all together and erasing the pattern. This is where the swirl earns its place: it makes the sesame addition apparent before anyone takes a bite, while the halva remains tucked inside the chocolate base.
The Oven Timing Matters More Than Another Topping
The authors identify baking time as crucial to balancing cakey and gooey textures. They estimate about 23 minutes, with a 22- to 25-minute window for the square pan. The center should retain a slight wobble, and the brownies firm as they cool. These cues apply to this specific recipe; they are not general instructions for removing any brownie batter while it’s still visibly liquid in the middle.
Ovens and pan placement affect the result, so the authors advise watching closely rather than relying entirely on a timer. The rectangular pan needs a couple of minutes less than the square one. For warm, gooey servings, the recipe says to rest the brownies for 30 minutes before cutting into 16 pieces. Otherwise, let them cool longer to room temperature instead of expecting neat portions right after baking.
For storage, Ottolenghi’s website says the brownies keep for up to five days in an airtight container and can be frozen, wrapped, for up to one month. The authors even recommend trying them partly thawed. Whether served warm or saved for later, they offer a different kind of brownie pleasure: dark chocolate remains the foundation, but sesame supplies a distinctive second voice. No frosting required, just the marbled evidence of a good pairing.
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