Miso has been one of my favourite ingredients to add to my baking. It adds a subtle hint of miso flavour, but more importantly, it adds depth, umami and complexity. The same way you add salt to your baking to add seasoning, rather than adding a salty taste, is the same way you would use miso in these Miso Peanut Butter cookies. These cookies are soft but rich with peanut butter, a hint of salty miso and have mini Reese’s pieces throughout. Also, you don’t need to refrigerate these cookies which means these Miso Peanut Butter Cookies come together in no time!

Miso in Baking

If you’re new to the concept of using miso in baking, you might want to read more about it in my Brown Butter Miso Cookies blog post. Otherwise, here’s the Coles note on miso! Miso is essentially a fermented bean paste used in Japanese cooking. Soybeans are fermented with salt and sometimes other ingredients to create miso. Depending on the ingredients used and the fermentation process, miso can be very diverse in flavour.

The miso I use in baking is White Miso. White Miso is often made with rice and barley and is fermented for a smaller time period than other misos. Due to this shorter fermentation period, White Miso is less pungent, less umami, and slightly sweet. The mildness of White Miso is perfect for baking as it makes it easy to combine with other flavours and enhances the overall flavour profile. As said earlier, I use miso similarly to salt. You want to add enough to season your baking, but you don’t want to add too much, otherwise, you will over salt it.

If you can find low-sodium white miso, please use it! Regular white miso although mild in flavour still has a high sodium content. One tbsp (17g) of regular low sodium miso has almost 800-900 grams of sodium. The low-sodium white miso I use is Mike Brand’s Sweet White Miso. Sweet White Miso is another name for White Miso because it has a slightly sweet undertone. These terms c can be used interchangeably. I really like this White Miso though because it’s a little bit looser and creamier than regular White Miso. Also, this brand has around 500 grams of sodium per tbsp, meaning I can use more miso and get more flavour, but not over-salt my product.

Miso in Miso Peanut Butter Cookies

In these Miso Peanut Butter Cookies, the main ingredient and flavour in this cookie is peanut butter of course. The peanut butter mostly hides the miso flavour, but adding miso enhances the nuttiness and sweetness of the peanut butter. To be honest, I’m not usually a fan of peanut butter cookies haha. I like these cookies a lot because you can taste the peanut butter, but it’s not overpowering. These are moist, sweet, slightly salty, and nutty. It’s a great combination and highly addicting.

To use miso in these Miso Peanut Butter Cookies, cream it together with the softened unsalted butter and peanut butter. It should be light and fluffy texture, just like whipped butter. After combining the miso, butter and peanut butter, the rest of the recipe comes together in no time. Add in both brown and white granulated sugar and cream. Then add your eggs and vanilla extract for an extra bit of flavour and cream for a few minutes. At this point, the mixture will look like fluffy peanut butter buttercream. This is the right consistency!

Finally, add your baking soda and flour, and combine until you can no longer see any flour. Remember that you aren’t adding any salt to these Miso Peanut Butter Cookies because the miso is the salt. If you’re using regular white miso, cut the miso amount from 2.5 tbsp to half of that. Lastly, add in a generous amount of mini Reese’s Pieces. Mini Reese’s are the perfect shape for cookies and they are little delightful bites of crunchy but gooey peanut butter and chocolate. Scoop and bake these cookies and allow them to cool completely before enjoying them!

If you make any of my creations, I’d love to see it! Tag me on Instagram @createandrecreate_