Photo: a glimpse inside my freezer. Over the last two years of researching and developing our plant-based tahini ice cream, my freezer was filled with numerous formulations and flavor variations. During my childhood, I loved to drizzle tahini and date syrup over my ice cream or sprinkle it with halvah crumbs, a tahini-based Middle Eastern sweet. My mom would prepare a frozen dessert at home by mixing whipped cream, sugar, and tahini. She would pour this mixture into Tupperwar

Cultures across the Middle East have been using tahini in desserts for generations (think, halvah!) before US pastry chefs started to swirl it into brownies. Crafted from sesame seeds that are toasted and pressed into a creamy paste with a delicious nutty flavor, tahini perfectly pairs with various flavors, including chocolate! When I first started working on creating our tahini fudge formula, the decision to substitute dairy cream with tahini paste in the traditional fudge r

Sesame seeds, the only ingredient in tahini, are among the first crops cultivated by humans, primarily for oil extraction in ancient times. The earliest written mention of sesame is found in a cuneiform document from c. 2400 BCE, which describes using the crop to produce oils and, interestingly, references mythological stories of the gods enjoying "sesame wine." Extracting oil from sesame is relatively simple compared to turning sesame seeds into a paste. This also explains w

It's Friday, and in Israel, markets and bakeries are stocked with challah bread. Nowadays, challah is available in various shapes, sizes, and grain combinations. However, when I was a child in the '70s and '80s, there was just one typical square-shaped challah. This is the only bread I crave when I return to my homeland. Challah bread is traditionally made without dairy ingredients, allowing it to be served with meat dishes at Shabbat dinner. Some recipes include eggs, enhanc

In the late 1700s, European Jews were mandated to take on permanent family names. To show their link to the holy land, my forebears selected the name "Teitelbaum," which is derived from a tree indigenous to that area. In German, "Teitelbaum" translates to "date palm tree." My grandfather, Yaakov Teitelbaum, moved to Israel with his wife, Shoshana, in 1936. Two years later, they celebrated the birth of their first son - my father - in Tel Aviv, a city adorned with palm trees,

Halvah brings back sweet, fond memories of my childhood. On weekends, my family often took day trips, frequently visiting one of the halvah makers in Abu Gosh, an Arabic village nestled on the mountain slopes of Jerusalem. We would drive to the village center, where several modest bakeries offered baklava, Knafeh, sesame candy, and halvah, all freshly prepared in the shop's backroom. Large trays of these sweet treats were displayed on counters and shelves, and the air was ric

As a child, I was known to be a picky eater. In this photo, my mother is feeding me while I'm distracted by a toy, with help from my brother and aunt. Although many children develop poor eating habits, my behavior in the 1970s was especially criticized because I refused to eat raw tomatoes, a staple in every Israeli meal. When I was four years old at my daycare, we were served the same snack every day: a slice of crusty bread topped with Gvina Levana (an Israeli soft white ch

Breakfast is the day's first meal, breaking the previous night’s fasting period. Breakfast dishes differ across cultures and regions globally. In France, breakfast typically consists of a café au lait paired with a croissant, often accompanied by butter or jam. The American continental breakfast features pancakes, waffles, bacon, and scrambled eggs. In England, a proper breakfast must include beans, while in China, breakfast offerings include rice noodles, soup, and unsweeten

I have vivid memories of the flavor and aroma of carob since I was a kid. There was one large carob tree near the playground that I would always play in, and ripe, dried bean-shaped pods would fall from the tree onto the ground. I used to pick one up, break the pod in half, and chew on the shell like a snack. The Carob tree grows in countries across the Mediterranean Sea. It has been cultivated and used as a sweetener for 4000 years. The word carob in English was borrowed fro

You can make a delicious seed bread using tahini in place of grain flour. How is that possible? When sesame seeds are ground into tahini, they form a smooth paste. Surprisingly, when a small amount of water is added, the tahini does not become thinner - it actually becomes thick, stiff, and almost dough-like. One reason for this transformation is that tahini contains extremely fine particles of ground sesame seeds suspended in oil. In raw tahini, the oil coating these particl