Tahini Brownies with a Sesame Praline Crust

I recently bought both tahini and sesame snaps for a cake recipe which I then decided not to make, so I had to think of another use for them. This recipe for tahini brownies with a sesame praline crust was the result. None of the sesame/tahini brownie recipes I could find online were quite what I was looking for - many used tahini to make dairy-free brownies and even more were so-called 'healthy' brownies, using raw ingredients or unusual grains instead of wheat flour. All I wanted was brownies with the flavour of sesame seeds!

In the end, I took inspiration from my recipe for brownies with a hazelnut praline crust, substituting tahini for some of the butter, and grinding the sesame snaps to make a praline topping. The results were very good - the brownies were very soft and gooey, and although the tahini flavour in the brownies wasn't very strong, the topping more than made up for this, adding a sweetened sesame flavour and crunch..

Ingredients
100g sesame snaps
90g butter
140g 70% plain chocolate
50g tahini
300g light muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
160g plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a 20cm/8" square brownie tin with baking parchment.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large mixing bowl, over a pan of simmering water.
While this is happening, use a food processor or pestle and mortar to grind the sesame snaps to a fine praline crumb.
When the butter and chocolate has melted, stir in the tahini, followed by the sugar. Stir until smooth and evenly blended, then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Sieve the flour and cocoa over the chocolate mix, and fold in.
Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and level the mixture, then sprinkle the sesame praline evenly over the batter.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a probe comes out with just a few damp crumbs sticking to it.
Cool before cutting into pieces of the desired size.

As this is the only chocolate baking I've done this month, and I was so pleased with the result, I'm sending this to August's We Should Cocoa link-up, hosted this month by Choclette at Tin and Thyme. As for July, the theme is 'Anything Goes'