Rose Beloff's Sesame Cookies

These cookies are shaped, not dropped. Crunchy, not very sweet, and high-protein, they are the perfect accompaniment for coffee or tea, and not too guilt-inducing.
Rose Beloff lived in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where I would travel to visit Debi Osnowitz who moved there when we were about 10. It was an hour and a half bus ride and I was allowed to travel alone, which passed for exciting in my childhood.
This recipe is from the Grand Forks Sisterhood Cookbook.  Fargo Jews were more modern and GF Jews were more traditional.  It turns out they had more refugees and immigrants, being closer to Canada, but I didn't know that at the time.  We just thought they were weird.

6 T. oil
6 T. sugar
6 T. flour (can be part whole wheat)
3 eggs
2 1/2 C. sesame seeds. This is about 12-13 oz. You can substitute ground almonds for up to 1/4

1/2 t. salt

Mix ingredients. Let stand for a few hours until thoroughly chilled, to make the paste easier to shape.

• Heat oven to 325°.
• Spray cookie tins well.
• Fill a flat dish with water to dip your hands and/or utensils - the mixture is very messy.
• Wet a spoon and drop tight spoonfuls of sesame mixture onto the tin. With wet hands, shape into crescents. They don't expand much in baking, so they can be quite close together on the tin.  You need to keep wetting your hands.  After shaping the cookies (this is two tins' worth), there will be sesame mixture all over the tins, so wet your hands some more and just kind of sweep them these crumbs into the closest cookies.  When they bake, they hold together.

Bake 20-30 minutes until nicely browned.