Benne Wafers

Charleston's thin, brittle, lace-edged sesame biscuit, descended from the benne seed enslaved West Africans carried across the Atlantic and planted for good luck: toasted sesame folded into a buttery brown-sugar batter, dropped small, and baked until it spreads into a crisp, caramel-gold wafer that snaps and floods the mouth with toasted seed

Origin: Charleston, South Carolina, United States

From the journey of Sesame.

Benne is the Gullah Geechee word for sesame, from the Mande languages of West Africa, and the benne wafer is one of the clearest culinary threads binding the American South to the continent its enslaved cooks came from. West Africans carried sesame across the Middle Passage and planted it at the edges of their gardens, both as food and for the good fortune it was held to bring (the Gullah called it the 'goodwill' plant), and by the early eighteenth century it was growing across the Carolina Lowcountry. The earliest published American recipe for a sesame dish appears in Sarah Rutledge's The Carolina Housewife of 1847, and the benne wafer became, and remains, an emblem of Charleston, sold in the city's shops and set out at receptions. The seed is toasted to bring up its nuttiness, then suspended in a thin brown-sugar batter that bakes out into a brittle, lace-edged, caramel wafer in which sesame is the whole flavour. It is the New World end of a journey that began in the Indus Valley five thousand years before.

Ingredients

  • 120 g sesame seeds (benne)
  • 110 g unsalted butter, softened
  • 200 g light brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 90 g plain flour
  • 0.5 tsp baking powder
  • 0.5 tsp salt

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 175°C and line several baking trays with baking paper or silicone mats. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 to 4 minutes until golden brown and fragrant. Tip out and cool.
  2. Beat the softened butter and brown sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth.
  3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together, then stir into the butter mixture until just combined. Fold in the cooled toasted sesame seeds.
  4. Drop small half-teaspoons of batter onto the lined trays, spacing them very well apart (at least 6cm), as they spread dramatically into thin wafers.
  5. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, until the wafers have spread thin, turned an even deep caramel gold, and the edges are darkening. Watch them closely towards the end.
  6. Let the wafers firm up on the tray for 2 to 3 minutes, until they crisp enough to lift, then transfer to a rack to cool completely, when they will become hard and brittle. Store airtight.

Notes

Benne wafers are made both ways across the Lowcountry: this brown-sugar version is the sweet, brittle wafer sold in Charleston's shops, but a savoury version, seasoned only with salt (and sometimes cayenne), is served as a cocktail nibble. The key in both is well-toasted seed and a thin batter dropped small. They keep for a week or more in an airtight tin, crisping as they sit, and are wonderful with afternoon tea, coffee, or a glass of sweet sherry. Use natural (unhulled) sesame for the most pronounced flavour.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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