Favourite Things Cookie Cups
Miso, peanut butter and chocolate, these are a few of my favourite things. The cups are crisp and chewy around the outside and soft and gooey in the centre. You can have it all!
WARNING! Now that I have your attention I have to tell you something and also bear with me, this might be a long one. I have had a few realisations this week. I did visit my Mutti this week, perhaps that’s why I have had this sudden spark in inspiration. I spent some time telling her what I’ve been up to and let her know that I have a batch of her (slightly too alcoholic) fruit mince mixture at home in preparation for Christmas. (Reminder that September/October is the time to get started on your fruit cakes, fruit minces and pudds).
I’ve been listening to food podcasts a lot lately to accompany me on my long runs (you’ve heard this before). I’ve noticed that these podcasts all have a common theme, this been a story. Food tells different stories depending on who creates it. This concept hit me pretty hard, I’ve always been a story teller and for a while I thought I would be a writer, but I think I’ve found my creative story-telling can come out in the things I cook. We all have a story to tell after all.
The other side to this idea of food been synonymous with story telling, is that food is ultimately about enjoyment and eating - calories and macros don’t actually matter that much. Naturally following from this, there’s this concept of a “food relationship” and the need to be honest about your relationship with food. Amazingly there are a lot of my food heroes who have struggled with their relationships. They tell their stories but there’s always this overwhelming positivity that comes out of it, which I hope to achieve.
This brings me to my food truth. Let’s be real, I do not have the most body positive outlook on life. Yes, I exercise a fair bit, I cook my own meals and I skip meals - but ultimately I love sweets and I love food. So sometimes when I look in the mirror I see a wobbly pudding. Disclaimer, I love pudding. I have this cycle where I feel guilty for eating and then I exercise but that’s not the right attitude. I am attempting to be a little less hard on myself but I still struggle on the regular with my food relationship. That’s why I and many others like me end up finding solace in cooking and baking for others. We can cook for others and share the love we have for food with others, without feeling guilty about eating the whole damn cake with the cherry on top. We all need to be kind to each other and a little more kind to ourselves. I will keep trying to improve my relationship with eating and food.
After that emotional roller-coaster and my shame around eating… I have discovered my favourite combination of things and chucked them all together into a singular vessel of FLAVOUR! So let me introduce you to this SWALTY miso and peanut butter cookie cup. It’s delicious as is, but I also dream about topping it with a big scoop of ice cream and sprinkles with a drizzle of chocolate or salted caramel sauce. PLEASE I actually need this in my life right now!
Makes 18 cups
The Cookies
220 g butter (I use Lurpak slightly salted)
40 g white miso paste
200 g brown sugar (dark or light)
100 g caster sugar
150 g peanut butter*
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 tsp to 1 tsp salt (to your taste)
2 eggs, 1 yolk
25 g malt powder
190 g plain flour
35 g wholemeal spelt flour/rye/wholewheat bread flour*
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
300 g chocolate (200 g dark (70%) chocolate chips, 100 g milk chocolate chunks) *
18 chocolate chunks to top the cups, salt for sprinkling
To make the biscuits
Okay so I brown my butter for this recipe, you do not have to do this step but I think it gives the cookie a deeper flavour. To brown the butter, place butter in a saucepan over a high heat. Once the butter starts to bubble, swirl the saucepan to stir. The bubbles/foam on the surface of the melted butter will change to a brown colour and it will produce this amazing nutty scent. Once the heavenly aroma is achieved, remove from heat and set aside until solidified (you can put it in the fridge for half an hour like I did).
Place browned butter (weigh out again you should have 170-180g if not add some more butter to make this total), sugars, vanilla and miso into a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on low - medium for 2-3 mins. Remember to scrape the sides of your bowl to ensure the mixture is fully combined.
Add the peanut butter and beat for another 2-3 minutes.
Add the eggs and yolk in one at a time and beat on low-medium after each addition. Again scrape the sides of the bowl.
Remove bowl from stand mixer,* and fold in the flours, baking soda , baking powder and malt powder until just combined.
Then fold in chocolate and any other additions until just distributed.
Roll into even sized balls and place on a tray/container. Put a chocolate chunk/piece on top of each ball and place into the freezer to rest for at least 30 minutes, or into the fridge for half an hour to overnight.*
While balls are in freezer pre-heat your oven to 170’C, fan-forced, or 180’C for other ovens. Prepare a muffin tin and grease with butter.
Place a ball of dough into each muffin hole. Once on trays sprinkle with salt, if you want to. I ALWAYS DO!
Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden around the edges.
Let the cookie cups rest for 20 minutes or until solid enough, then place onto a cooling rack. They will become more solid as they cool.
Notes:
*I use Mayver’s dark roast crunchy peanut butter. If you have allergies you can change this to tahini or almond butter or cashew butter.
* You could add in toasted walnuts or pecans with the chocolate
*If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer or even hand mix. The butter is melted/softened so it doesn’t require much man power
* You could leave the bowl on the stand mixer and beat on low. I always mix in the dry ingredients by hand because I am too scared of over mixing.
* At this point in the recipe, you can portion dough balls out to set some aside for freezing as your freezer stash.
final thoughts…
This season is my favourite baking season! It’s Autumn in America which means it’s PUMPKIN SEASON!!! I absolutely adore pumpkin season! I wish I could go lie in a pumpkin patch with all my pumpkin friends. If you have yet to discover a love for pumpkin season, including all things pumpkin, you need to get onto instagram or pinterest right now and look at it. Pumpkin spice, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bundts - pumpkin is one of my favourite and most versatile savoury/sweet ingredient. I’ll be hitting you with some pumpkin recipes soon, I promise. You will all need to EMBRACE THE PUMPKIN!!!
Amelia xx
