Guest Post by Kate

Hey everyone! I'm Kate of Be merry, Kate! I'm absolutely honored to be swapping blogs with Ashley. You can find her over at my blog Be Merry Kate today!

I wanted to share with you one of my new favorite cookie recipes. These cookies are a southern delicacy that I was worried would be impossible to make. They did take a while but they weren't hard at all! You can read up on the history of the cookie here.

Benne Wafers

(recipe a la Paula Deen)

Via

Serving: 12 dozen
Time: 18 minutes (per tray!)

1 1/2 cups sesame seeds
2 cups flour
1 lb box light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 sticks butter, softened
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place raw sesame seeds in a single layer on baking sheet. Bake for 3 minutes until lightly browned. Cool completely.


Lower oven temperature to 300 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cream sugar, butter & eggs until very light, about 5 minutes. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and stir with spatula until combined. (Stirring this manually is impossible, I used the "stir" setting on my mixer and it worked just fine!) Add vanilla. Stir in cool sesame seeds.

Drop batter by 1/2 tsp full onto cookie sheets, 1 inch apart.

Bake until very brown but not burned on edges, about 14-15 minutes. Let cookies cool completely on parchment paper, then peel them away. Store between layers of wax paper in an airtight container. Freeze in tins.

I will warn you, if you only use one cookie sheet, these cookies could take forever to make! With a full bowl of batter making a whole 12 dozen cookies, it may be a good idea to half the recipe if you'd like. I still have a few dozen left - who knows when I'll be able to finish them!

Hope y'all enjoy the cookies! And thanks again to Ashley!