Super crunchy and delicious, I think these Homemade Sesame Snaps are better than store bought. Big call!

Do you remember Sesame Snaps in the tiny little packet that you always had trouble opening? Then when it was open the little slices of goodness were all stuck together so rarely if ever, you managed to break them apart without snapping it in half? It didn’t seem to matter though as they were sweet and crunchy – so sticky, crunchy and rock hard in fact that it seemed like your teeth would break! Despite all that, they were yum!

So I don’t know what the ingredients are in the original – might take a peek when I am next at the supermarket – however I wondered if I could recreate the taste with honey or rice malt syrup. It turns out I can! Yahoo!

After quick searching on the net, I found lots of Home Sesame Snaps made with sugar or honey and there seemed to be two methods of making it.

One was melt, mix and whack it in the oven.

Too hard

The other was toast the seeds first, then melt ingredients on the stove, get a thermometer out to make sure you are heating it to the right temperature, cook for a certain amount of time, watching it carefully as there were stories of sugar bubbling over and ruining stoves etc. Eeeeek!

Can you guess which one I went with?? Yes the easy one of course. Why make it harder than it needs to be? And who has a cooking thermometer anyway? Certainly not a slap and dash cook like me!

Now at the time I write this, I have made four batches of this stuff and I just want to point out my mistakes so you don’t have to make any. It was very frustrating!

Many mistakes to learn from

So first of all it is mucho importanto to get the right non-stick baking paper to line your pan. My first two ruined batches drummed that home to me. I used any old greaseproof paper I had in the pantry and guess what happened? Totally stuck to the delicious yumminess. This stuff is like toffee, so no wonder it sticks but still chewing bits with paper on it was no fun, I can tell you. But it was too delish to waste.

The directions I was using as a base didn’t say anything about greasing the paper first. So second time around I thought that this was the problem, so I greased it all up good and proper and guess what? Stuck again. Noooooo!!!!!

(There were some remedies on the net of supposedly how to get it off – soak the paper with oil, put it in the freezer, heat it up, douse it with water, use a hairdryer – none of those worked.)

So I headed back to google to work out what the frig was going on and it turns out it has to be a particular type of paper. Not your standard old wax paper because apparently when it goes in the oven the wax melts and you still stick anyway. No, it had to be a silicon-coated paper. I didn’t even know such a thing existed.

Silicon paper

I had a different type of baking paper in the pantry but it didn’t say silicon anywhere on the packet or on their website, so I wasn’t going to risk it with my 3^rd batch. So I went shopping and good old Coles brand said specifically ‘silicon coated paper.’ So we were armed and ready, greased it to the max for now I was gun shy and didn’t want to make any more mistakes.

Excited to get it right this time, in it went and something else weird happened. Cooked it for the same amount of time but for some reason it didn’t bubble like it did before or toast the seeds as well and it was threatening to be a gooey mess. So I whacked it back in the oven for a while longer and while it worked, it was still a bit sticky and not as crisp and crunchy like the first two paper-stuck ruined batches. (The birds in the back yard loved all my failures.) At least this one came of the paper. I was thankful for small mercies.

Batch number 4

‘Anyhoo’ to batch No 4 – I was determined to get this right because the end result is so amazing – and success!!! Didn’t grease the silicon paper this time and it still slid off easily – too much butter may have caused the 3^rd round stickiness. The thing to watch out for though is at the 10 minute mark of the cooking, you really need to watch it to make sure that:-

a)      it is bubbling like it is supposed to

b)      the sesame seeds are toasting to a nice golden brown colour

If it hasn’t done the above then leave it in and keep watching it every 2 minutes or so until you get the desired result. Otherwise it doesn’t harden properly when cooled. Not that the undercooking is a problem, as it still tastes amazing, however when done properly it is super fantastico!

So despite all of the above, it is a really easy thing to make when you know what you are doing. Please be careful though and keep kids away from it until it is done and cooled and even with little kids, watch out with the teeth thing because it is really like toffee.

So here we go…

Homemade Sesame Snaps

2 TBS butter

4 TBS rice malt syrup (or honey)

1 cup raw sesame seeds

How you do it…

Preheat the oven to 200° C (380°F)

Melt butter and syrup in a pan over medium heat.

Once melted and simmering a little, take off heat and mix through sesame seeds.

Spoon out onto silicon coated baking paper (important!!!!) – putting spoons full around the tray giving room for it to spread out.

Bake in the oven for 10-15mins.

Check at 10 mins point and make sure it is bubbling and seeds are toasted to golden brown. If not, keep in oven for 2 min intervals and keep checking until this happens.

Out of the oven place on heatproof surface and leave to cool completely so it hardens. Snap into pieces when cool.

Munch away! So much better knowing what’s in it.

Store in an airtight container out of the fridge. It seems to last at least a week – we eat it too quickly to see if it lasts any more!

Happy Munching!

Kristy x

2020 update: these days I don’t eat seeds because of their PUFA content but occasionally I might make an exception for this recipe as it is too yum! I have also made them with macadamia nuts here, shredded coconut here and the same recipe is used with oats here.