Benne Cakes
Aperçu
Benne is the Wolof and Bambara word for sesame, and it is the word that carries this dish's history. Sesame was cultivated across West Africa long before the Atlantic slave trade, and enslaved West Africans carried the seed and the word with them to the Americas, where both survived. Benne cakes as they exist today are most strongly associated with the Gullah Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, where the seed was planted, the name was kept, and the thin crisp sesame wafer became a regional speciality that Charleston still sells. That makes them a diaspora food rather than a West African one: African in origin, African in name, and developed into their current form on the other side of the ocean. The association with good luck travelled too, and it is the reason benne cakes appear at Kwanzaa, the African American celebration established in 1966, where they are served as a snack before the meal. The source for this recipe places them in West Africa and gives Ghana, Nigeria and Togo as the cuisine, which is where the seed and the word come from rather than where this particular cookie was developed. Both halves of that story are true and neither is complete on its own.
Note de Patrimoine AFN
Benne is the Wolof and Bambara word for sesame, a crop long cultivated in West Africa, and the word and the seed were carried to the Americas by enslaved West Africans. Benne cakes are documented as a speciality of the Gullah Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, where sesame is associated with good luck.
Ingrédients
Les mentions alimentaires sont fournies par les contributeurs à titre indicatif. Elles ne sont pas vérifiées par AFN et dépendent des produits que vous achetez. En cas d’allergie grave, vérifiez vous-même chaque ingrédient. Cuisine, allergies et votre propre jugement
Préparation
- 1
Preheat the oven to 163°C.
- 2
Lightly oil a baking sheet, or line it with parchment paper.
- 3
Mix the brown sugar and butter together and beat until creamy.
- 4
Stir in the beaten egg, vanilla extract and lemon juice.
- 5
Add the flour, baking powder, salt and toasted sesame seeds and combine.
- 6
Drop by rounded teaspoons onto the baking sheet, 2 inches apart.
- 7
Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges are browned.
- 8
Cool on a wire rack before serving.
Notes de l’Africook
Notes personnelles de Beatrice Ige- Toast the sesame seeds first in a dry pan over medium heat until they just colour. This is where the flavour comes from and untoasted seeds give a flat, pale cookie.
- Watch the seeds closely while toasting. They go from golden to burnt in seconds and burnt sesame is bitter throughout.
- Space them two inches apart. These are drop cookies and they spread considerably, so a crowded sheet gives you one large sheet of cookie.
- Soften the butter properly first, which takes about an hour out of the fridge. Cold butter will not cream with the sugar.
- Cool them on a rack rather than the hot sheet. They firm up as they cool and left on the tray they overbake.
Questions fréquentes
What does benne mean?
Benne is the Wolof and Bambara word for sesame. It travelled to the Americas with enslaved West Africans along with the seed itself, and it survived in the Gullah Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, where it is still the everyday word for sesame. That linguistic survival is the clearest evidence of the food's origin.
Are benne cakes African or American?
Both, in different senses. Sesame is West African and so is the word benne. The thin crisp cookie as it exists today was developed in the Gullah Geechee Lowcountry of the American South, where the seed was planted and the name kept. It is best described as a diaspora food rather than as belonging to either place alone.
Why are benne cakes eaten at Kwanzaa?
Because sesame carries an association with good luck that travelled from West Africa along with the seed. Kwanzaa, established in 1966 as an African American celebration, adopted benne cakes as a snack served before the meal, which draws on that association and on the cookie's Lowcountry roots.
Why did my benne cakes come out soft instead of crisp?
They were underbaked, or too thick. These are meant to be thin and crisp, so drop small rounded teaspoons rather than generous ones, and bake until the edges are properly browned rather than pale. They also firm up considerably as they cool, so judge them once cold rather than straight from the oven.
Avis
3 avis
My grandmother back in Accra used to make something so similar with sesame, herh the nuttiness! Living in Columbus now I had to go to the Saraga international market on Morse Rd to get a proper big bag of sesame seeds. Toasting them in the pan first made the whole kitchen smell amazing paa. I added a tiny bit extra lemon juice to cut the brown sugar sweetness, turned out perfect oo.
Had to pop down to Waitrose to find toasted sesame seeds for this recipe. Tasted lovely and nutty but mine spread out completely on the baking paper and stuck together into one giant biscuit! Took about 20 mins in my fan oven to get crisp rather than 15. Will try chilling the butter mixture first next time.
Picked up a giant tub of sesame seeds from the local South Asian grocer just for these. You definitely need to keep an eye on them in the oven around the 12 minute mark as the brown sugar edges scorch quickly! The splash of lemon juice is brilliant though, gives a lovely subtle bite to the crunch.