Recreating an Old Favorite: Black Sesame Polvoron

If the black sesame seeds you have are raw, place them in a large skillet over low heat and toast until fragrant. Try not to leave the pan as it’s difficult to tell whether black sesame seeds are burnt. Go by smell; once the seeds smell fragrant and nutty, scrape the seeds into a bowl and set aside to let cool.

Grind the cooled sesame seeds into a fine powder. I use a suribachi that I bought at my local Japanese supermarket; these things are super easy to use and they do the job quite well (you get a mini-workout in the process too!). If you can’t find a suribachi near you, a spice grinder or a coffee grinder would work equally well.

In the meantime, prepare the roasted flour by heating your large skillet over medium-high heat; once hot, dump the flour in and spread it around the pan and turn the heat down to medium-low. Keep stirring the flour so that it doesn’t burn, roasting it until it turns a golden color and lets off a nutty fragrance. Keep your eyes on the flour so that it doesn’t burn (unless you want random bits of burnt flour in your final product, an unfortunate mistake I made the first time I tried making these).

Once the flour is done roasting, scrape the flour into a bowl and set aside; return the skillet to the heat. Dump in your butter and let it melt (but don’t let it brown, we just want it melted). Once the butter is melted, add the roasted flour, sugar, powdered milk and a pinch of salt and stir with the spatula so that all ingredients are well mixed; at this point, it should look a bit gritty or sandy. Continue stirring, allowing the milk powder to toast, once it smells fragrant, take the pan off the heat and pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool slightly.

At this point, you can shape the polvoron in several ways; the easiest is just to press the mixture into a well-oiled, foil-lined baking pan and cut into the shape you desire after it’s been refrigerated. If you feel like putting more effort into it, you could try using a mold like I did here (I was trying to recreate the chess piece shape that I remember so fondly). Essentially the basic process for shaping is the same whether you use a pan or a mold, take the polvoron mixture, press into the mold, pop it out of the mold (if not using a baking pan), and place on a sheet lined with wax paper or foil and refrigerate. Once refrigerated, the polvoron’s shape will set. Just make sure you shape the polvoron while the mixture is still warm; once it’s cooled, it is much more difficult for the mixture to stick together.

Or, if you can’t wait for the polvoron to set, you could eat it hot, straight off the burner in all its sandy goodness. I’m sure if you sprinkled it on top of yogurt or ice cream, it’d be delicious (Note to self: try this next time I make polvoron . . .)