Thursday, December 09, 2004

Cookies with a Japanese Touch - Miso Cookies -


Miso Cookies

Sounds weird, doesn’t it? That’s exactly why I wanted to give it a try ;)
I found 2 miso cookie recipes on the net:
Marukome’s recipe and another one with peanut butter. This time I wanted to have it in a real Japanese-style, so I chose Marukome’s recipe. This one is very simple --- almost too simple --- so I couldn’t resist the temptation to give it just a little twist.

I divided the miso cookie dough in half: the first half for plain miso cookies and the rest for an experiment. As soon as the plain ones came out of the oven, I took a bite and found that they taste rather light. I didn’t recognize miso flavor so much at the first bite, but after eating one whole piece, I felt the mild miso taste filling my mouth, with the taste of butter and sugar. Not bad. Not bad at all :)

Though plain ones tasted good, I wanted something more. Now what could I do with the rest of the dough? I thought about it for a while and divided the dough in half again.

1) The first half of the dough was colored with pureed purple sweet potatoes. (Yes, I still had some left in the freezer...) The cookies turned out in lovely light pink, but the taste was even lighter. I should’ve sweetened the puree more beforehand.

2) With the other half of the dough, I tried to enhance the sweetness and give a little spiciness with special toppings.
What I prepared was granulated sugar+ ichimi (Japanese chili powder) mixture and granulated sugar+sansho (Japanese pepper) mixture.
These toppings successfully added some extra flavor to my miso cookies :D

Just to make the photos look nicer with another color, I added some green tea cookies left in my cookie jar. I’m still working on this green tea cookie recipe. These ones don't taste the way I wanted. Give me some more time to work on the recipe....

OK. Here's some pics showing how I played with these Japanese style cookies. (I wanted them to look like photos in "Guidebook of Kyoto" or something, you know. )


(Click above 2 pics to enlarge)






Want to see where this beautiful maple leaf came from? Check this. It's my little present from Kochi, Japan :)

*To tell you the truth, this post was written last month. I waited to publish it until the maple leaves around here turn colors and their photos are posted on my another blog.



18 comments:

pinkcocoa said...

wow! the cookies look so beautiful! do you have a sakura-shaped cookie cutter? I like the light pink hue! ;-)

obachan said...

Oh, of course pink is your favorite color. What else can it be? : ) BTW, it’s not a cookie cutter that I used. Actually, it’s a vegetable cutter. Have you seen sakura-shaped carrots in Japanese nabe (or other traditional dishes, too)? The veg. cutter is used to make them. But there’s no law here against using one as a cookie cutter, so I went for it ;P

chika said...

jeeeeeze, miso cookies! I have never even heard of such things. But wait, they have sweet miso-pan in bakeries and they are good - so why not in cookies!
The ones with chili and sansho look and sound good, but I guess you should have put some tofu and wakame in them... (just kidding ;P)

obachan said...

Yeah, and in the morning, put one in a bowl, pour boiling water and wait for 3 minutes…. ;P

JMom said...

So pretty! The artist in you really comes out in these compositions :)

Never heard of miso cookies either, I've only had soup. I bet they were very good though. They sure look pretty enough. Are they similar to shorbread cookies, or sugar cookies?

obachan said...

Mmmmm, I would say...maybe somewhere in between???

Fish Fish said...

Obachan, really nice cookie wor~ I had haccho miso cookie before. Too sweet, u know, haccho miso. But I love the lay out of this miso cookies of urs. Especially the right side layout pics. Nice layout, good angle with warm sunlight. ;)

obachan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
obachan said...

Thanks : ) That’s right. I think the taste of miso cookies varies a lot depending on the kind of miso used.

Reid said...

Hi Obachan!

The cookies look so tempting. I've had miso cookies only once before and they were really, really good. What type of miso did you end up using?

obachan said...

> Reid --- It was just a regular ”kome-miso”… not too salty, not too sweet.

> Jonny --- No way! My miso cookies are not as unhealthy as your Turkey sashimi. At least they were baked in the oven. ;)

nobody said...

obachan, these cookies are beautiful! By the way, I tried your potato pancake recipe last night. Soo good! I will be having them often!

obachan said...

Hi holly,
Thanks for commenting. I’m sooooooooooo happy to hear that! :D

Ms One Boobie said...

Hey.. Obachan.. :)
Sorry.. i'm reading this.. this late.. :(
Been busy lately.. with christmas.. and the store.. and chloe's birthday.. :(
Oh well.. i'm trying to catch up on reading tonite.. :)
Love the miso cookies.. they are so pretty.. :)
Never had one before.. but i'm sure they taste good.. :)
I so envy you ..and wish i can cook and bake like you .. for the sake of my daughter.. :)
Cheers..!

obachan said...

Oh, come on, you must be 100 times better cook/baker than I am. I’m just enjoying my experiments with not-too-high expectation levels. If my family members lived and ate with me every day, I’m sure they’d complain about my cooking pretty often.

Rei said...

Oh Obachan,
Your cookies look so beautiful and mouth watering. Are they all miso cookies? I guess its too old an entry for the link to the miso cookie recipe, cuz its not there. I can find a peanut butter miso cookie recipe and your ma-cha cookie recipe. Did you tint the miso dough pink for 1 batch and swirl the green tea dough with the miso dough?
I'd really like to try the miso cookie recipe for Hinamatsuri.
Thank you...have a great day!

Rei said...

Sakura cutter is actually carrot cutter. I have one of those somewhere!

Oompa Lompa said...

I would like to get the recipe for the miso cookies. I have Japanese exchange students coming to my city this summer for the Sister City exchange and would like to do something besides daifuku and dangos for them. You can e-mail it to me at sora9969@yahoo.com. Thanks in advance Obachan