Brown butter Miso Peanut butter Chocolate chunk cookies

What a mouthful. This BA recipe was told to me by a close friend (whose birthday is tomorrow!) when we met up for a wander around Chinatown. That Monday afternoon felt like a hint of normality. With this intense heat (it's the same temperature in London as in Singapore sans AC = sweat++) plus a couple of meal dates lined up next week, it feels like we are starting to move forward. I went to work for the first time in 2 months and am so glad I am not in a full-time job. Maybe I really should reconsider career options seeing as baking is the only thing that excites me these days.

I adapted this recipe from https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/miso-almond-butter-cookies using peanut butter and mixing the chocolate chunks into the batter rather than coat them. This is a sweet and savoury cookie so for those of you who don't enjoy these flavours together, I wouldn't recommend! Personally I'm all about the fries dipped in vanilla ice cream but I can picture my brother-in-law's looks of disgust.

The constituents

Brown butter: not sure if this made a difference but it's meant to give the cookie a nuttier flavour. I read that it's useful to use a light coloured pan so that you can see when the butter is browning. Unfortunately my pan had a black base so was a bit difficult to tell. It did look browner than when it went into the pot. It can burn quite easily so keep an eye on it.

Miso: I used white miso cos I read that red miso made the cookie too salty. If you're not too big a fan of savoury cookies then put less of this.

Peanut butter: The original recipe used almond butter but I decided to use my leftover Skippy which probably made it a bit sweeter so I reduced the amount of sugar used.

Chocolate chunks: I prefer chunks rather than chips in my cookies! I used Menier dark chocolate.

Flour: I was going to buy whole wheat flour but instead got this Shipton Mill Organic Three Malts and Sunflower Brown Flour which had sunflower, sesame, linseed and pumpkin seeds, giving the cookie a nice crunch I enjoyed. I reckon plain flour will suffice.

My version of the BA Miso Butter Cookies - makes 16 cookies

160g Shipton Mill Organic Three Malts and Sunflower Brown Flour

½ tsp baking soda

140g unsalted butter

180g dark brown sugar

1 egg

76g smooth peanut butter

60g white miso

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate (I used Menier's) chopped into chunks

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Whisk flour and baking soda in a medium bowl.

2. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, swirling occasionally, until it foams, then browns. Mine took about 6-8mins. Transfer to a medium bowl and let cool for 5-10mins.

3. Add sugar and stir until well combined. Then add egg and stir until the mixture is smooth. Add almond butter, miso, vanilla and stir until well combined.

4. Mix dry ingredients in until combined. Then, add in the chocolate chunks.

5. Put dough in the fridge for at least 15mins. You can probably pre-heat your oven at this stage instead. Always takes me a while to measure out stuff.

6. Scoop a large tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. Recipe says there should be about 16 balls but you can make them however you like. I put them in the fridge so that they don't spread so much and will be crispy on the edges and softer on the inside. I made 2 batches - 1 in the fridge for about 10 mins and 1 in for about 25mins and I enjoyed the second batch more. If you have space and equipment you could do the 2 batches at one go with 1 being on the top shelf and 1 on the bottom of the oven.

7. Bake cookies until lightly browned and firm around the edges, took about 14 minutes for me. Cookies will be soft when they come out and taste much better cooled!

Would appreciate ideas on what to bake next. Meanwhile, please continue to stay safe everyone! Fingers crossed there are no new waves.

Nic x