Miso Buttered Toast Cookies: Recipe #26

The cookie that proves my theory that there are truly no limits to what you can make into dessert, as long as you have the right foundations. Miso butter & sourdough toast in a cookie, a revelation!

Do I dare even try and explain how I came up with the idea to combine sourdough toast with a cookie?! How does one explain that they woke up at 2am and thought “i love toast soo much, why isn’t there a buttered toast cookie in every cookie shop when we all collectively adore toast so much?”. And so it began.

I promise you I am often just as amused as all of you, about these ideas that end up as recipes. Take this one for example, as outrageous as this might sound, what could be more of a nod to the humility of our ancestors than re-purposing bread into this cookie to turn it into something truly remarkable. You will not ever taste anything quite like it.

There are many toasted layers that ensure the experience of eating this cookie is as complex as making it.

For starters you toast your bread to a perfect golden brown, just ever-so-lightly burnt at the crusts, framing the perfectly amber centre. Adorned with salted butter, then blended to make our toast flakes. Then of course we have the use of blonde chocolate in this cookie, white chocolates’ toasted sister. The butter? Well naturally it’s ‘toasted’ aka browned, which is a process in which you toast the milk solids to develop their nutty flavour. Lastly? The cookie is rolled in those salty toast flakes just before baking, to ensure they are now toasted again in the oven, giving them a unique crunchy texture adding depth to every bite.

I know I say this about every one of my cookies but can you imagine I will ever be able to follow this one with anything nearly as intriguing? It really is the best of my work. The best thing since sliced bread, some might say.

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Miso Buttered Toast Cookie Recipe

Yields 10-12 Large Cookies

Ingredients

Toast Flakes

• 3 slices of sourdough bread, toasted (roughly 120g-150g)

• Roughly 1 tablespoon of salted butter.

Save 60g toast for filling and the rest for topping the cookies pre-bake.

Cookie Dough

Butters & Sugars

• 50g unsalted butter, cold and cubed (cube then refrigerate until needed)

• 80g unsalted butter, browned

• 1 and 1/2 tsp white miso paste (if you don’t have miso, just remove it and increase the salt below to 1/2 tsp)

• 165g granulated sugar

• 60g muscavado or dark brown soft sugar

Wet

• 1 large egg and 1 yolk

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 tablespoon black treacle (30g) - if you’re in the US you can substitute for molasses, not identical but close.

Dry

• 250g plain/all purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/4 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt (if skipping the miso increase salt to 1/2 tsp)

Chocolate (total 280g chocolate)

• 125g blonde chocolate bar broken into chunks (I got mine from M&S)

• 155g white chocolate bar broken into chunks

Save 60g of chocolate for the top.

Tools

• Stand mixer or electric whisk

• Scales

• Spatula

• Mixing bowls

• Measuring spoons

• Saucepan

Method

Toast Flakes

1. Take your 3 slices of sourdough and toast them for 3-4 minutes in your toaster. You want them nice and golden but not burnt!

2. Immediately when they come out, butter them with your salted butter and add to your food processor.

3. In a food processor, break your toast into pieces and blend until you get small flakes/chunks (around the size of flakey salt pieces). If you have a few larger chunks that’s great for texture.

4. Weigh 60g of the toast flakes into a separate bowl and set aside. This will be the toast that goes into our dough.

5. Put the remaining toast flakes into a bowl and set aside. This will be the toast flakes that we roll the outside of our cookie dough in.

Dough

1. In a small saucepan, melt the 80g of unsalted butter for the brown butter over medium heat. Cook until deeply golden, you can see really dark flakes at the bottom of the pot and the aroma is nutty. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 30 minutes.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or using an electric whisk), add the cold cubed butter, cooled brown butter, miso paste, granulated sugar and muscavado/dark brown soft sugar. Mix until combined and creamy but not overly aerated. Around 2-3 minutes.

3. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla and black treacle. Mix until fully incorporated. Around 1-2 minutes.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix on low speed until just combined and a few flour streaks still remain. Do not overmix.

6. Now fold through the 220g of broken chunks of chocolate, reserving 60g for the topping, along with the 60g of toast flakes that you set aside earlier for the dough.

7. Portion the dough into large 80-90g balls (10–12 cookies). Roll briefly to smooth.

8. Roll each dough ball liberally in the remaining toast flakes, pressing gently so they adhere to the outside. You want the cookie dough ball completely covered in the toast flakes!

9. Place the cookies onto a parchment lined tray and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, but ideally 12 hours (I did 24hrs to really develop flavour and hydrate the flour, but this is optional).
   

Bake and Finish

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C.

2. Arrange the chilled cookies on a lined baking tray, leaving plenty of space between each, at least 3 inches.

3. Bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden at the edges and just set in the centre. The toast on the outside should be golden but not burnt.

4. Straight from the oven, press the reserved 60g chocolate chunks into the tops of the cookies, whilst they are still hot.

5. Now using a cookie cutter or a large bowl/glass, shape the cookies into circles if needed, also whilst they are still hot.

6. Allow the cookies to cool on the tray for 5–10 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely. And enjoy!

Storage Instructions

The cookies will last up to 3 days at room temp in an airtight container and up to 7 days in the fridge in an airtight container. You can also freeze them post baking to eat at a later date, however please note this will change the texture slightly and minimise the crunch on the outside.

Bake Ahead Instructions

Yes you can absolutely make these ahead and bake them 10 minutes before serving. Just make the dough exactly as above, but instead of placing into the fridge, cover the tray with cling film and place directly into the freezer for up to 3 months.

To bake from frozen: Follow the exact same instructions as above, except bake for 3-4 more minutes than the original recipe, straight from frozen. No need to defrost pre-bake as cookies cook beautifully from frozen.

Bakers Notes

• I like a salty sweet cookie but if you’re sensitive to salt, decrease the miso to 1 tsp instead!

• The toast flakes inside the cookie will provide chew, the ones on the outside will provide crunch. Both are super useful to the final outcome & lend themselves to adding textural intrigue to this cookie.

• You can substitute the sourdough for regular bread but I would recommend brown bread or wholemeal as this will add a further ‘toast like’ depth of flavour.

• Chilling your cookie dough:

  • Develops flavour, think of a stew on day 1 vs day 2, the flavours really deepen and come together.

  • Chilling helps to get you nice round cookies straight from the oven.