Vegan Miso Brown Butter Cookies

These vegan miso brown butter cookies are very much a love letter to my favorite, but now gone bakery. I lived in walking distance from it years ago, and would walk over and get these cookies quite frequently. They were salty, and sweet, with just a hint of coffee. But unfortunately the bakery closed a few years back, so no more miso brown butter cookies. I have found a recipe for these cookies, and made quite a lot of tweaks to make them vegan. 

Vegan Brown Butter?

I did a lot of research on how to achieve vegan brown butter. Some methods I saw were taking vegan butter, and browning it by itself in a pan. Which doesn’t translate in my head as a brown butter gets it nuttiness from browned milk solids. In my research, I also saw infusing nuts into vegetable oil. This is the route I went, it made the most sense. But instead of vegetable oil, I opted for coconut oil. I wanted to be able to end up with a solid oil that I could cream together with the sugar to create these vegan brown butter miso cookies.

Caramelized White Chocolate

Now this component takes some patience to make. It should be noted you are looking for a vegan white chocolate that has cocoa butter. Trying to caramelize a vegan white chocolate without it will not work, it will be clumpy. David Lebovitz has done a nice write up about caramelizing white chocolate. But with vegan chocolate, you need to use a higher oven temperature, so keep an eye on it. I tried with a lower oven temperature, and the vegan white chocolate would not change in color much. Another note is, vegan white chocolate will not get as dark in color as David Lebovitz’s images, so were looking for a nice tan color on ours! These are the vegan white chocolate chips I used, you will need a whole bag for this recipe.

Final flavors

You can’t make a vegan miso brown butter cookie without miso! I have said previously in my chocolate chip cookie recipe, that we would use miso again if you purchased it, and here we are. Miso gives this cookie its most prominent flavor, so do not skip it. 

Another important ingredient is coffee! I love the coffee in this cookie, it helps balance out the flavors. Try to get as finely ground coffee as you can to put in these vegan miso brown butter cookies. Any coffee will do, just use your favorite.

Finally, you will need a puffed rice to put in the caramelized white chocolate. You can find this at asian markets, they usually come in snack sized bars, so just chop them up pretty finely (think pea sized and smaller). You want little pieces of crunch within in your chocolate. If you cannot find this kind of rice, just use Rice Krispies cereal! I have used this before when I cannot find puffed rice at the asian market. It works just as well and no chopping involved.

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Vegan Miso Brown Butter Cookies

by: Katelyn

• V
• VG
• DF

Vegan miso brown butter cookies with caramelized vegan white chocolate, puffed rice and a hint of coffee.

• Difficulty:Intermediate
• Prep Time:20 mins
• Cook Time:60 mins
• Serves:18
• Freezable:Yes

Nutrition per portion

Ingredients

• Brown Butter
• 1 cup (226g) Refined Coconut Oil
• ⅓ cup (36g) Lightly Chopped Pecans
• 1 tbsp (14g) Light Brown Sugar
• Caramelized White Chocolate
• 8.8 oz bag of Vegan White Chocolate Chips
• 0.7 oz Puffed Rice
• Cookies
• ¾ cup (165g) Brown Butter
• ¾ cup (165g) Light Brown Sugar
• ½ cup (100g) Granulated Sugar
• 6 tbsp (85g) Aquafaba
• ¼ cup (85g) Red Miso
• ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup + 2 tbsp (170g) Bread Flour
• ½ cup + 2 tbsp (90g) All Purpose Flour
• 2 tbsp (10g) Finely Ground Coffee
• ¾ tsp Baking Powder
• ½ tsp Baking Soda
• ½ tsp Kosher Salt
• Flaky Sea Salt for Topping

Method

Make the Brown Butter

1. In a medium saucepan, add the pecans and lightly toast over medium heat for 3 minutes until fragrant.
2. Lower the heat to low, add in the coconut oil and brown sugar. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Strain the coconut oil into a heat proof container. Let the coconut re-solidify in the fridge or leave at room temperature.

  Caramelize the White Chocolate

1. Pre-heat oven to 325°. On a small baking sheet, add all the white chocolate. Place in oven and melt all the chocolate, mixing extremely well every 5 to 6 minutes, until caramelized. This should take about 20-40 minutes. Keep a watchful eye on the chocolate to make sure it doesn't burn. If your oven runs hot, lower the temperature to 300°.
2. Once desired color, removed from oven and add in puffed rice, mix until combined. Pour onto a sheet of parchment paper and spread into a thin layer. Freeze for 20 minutes.
3. Roughly chop chocolate, in varying sizes and store in fridge until ready to use.

  Make the Cookies

1. Add the brown butter (3/4c or 165g)* and both sugars to a bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on medium for 2-3 minutes, scraping down sides occasionally.
2. Add in the aquafaba, and mix on medium for 3-5 minutes.
3. In a small bowl, add the flours, baking powder, baking soda, coffee and salt. Whisk to combine.
4. Add in the vanilla extract and miso to the brown butter mixture. Mix on medium for another minute until combined.
5. Add in the dry ingredients, a half cup at a time, on low speed. Once all the dry ingredients are incorporated, add in the chopped caramelized white chocolate. Mix by hand or “pulse” the stand mixer, just to get the chocolate dispersed.
6. Using a large cookie scoop, scoop out the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover the cookie dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
7. Preheat oven to 350° degrees. Place balls of cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet leaving 3 inches of space in between each cookie. Freeze the baking sheet with cookies for 10 minutes, this will help the cookies spread less so do not skip! Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden around the edges. Top with flaky sea salt and let cool for 5-10 minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack to completely cool.

Makes 18 large cookies *You will notice you will not use all the brown butter, some you will lose to the pecans. Save the extra brown butter for something else! Just store in the fridge.