Melty chocolate chunks, toasty pecans, and serious depth of flavour from miso. These are the best cookies you will ever eat — vegan, gluten-free, or not (I’m not exaggerating).
These cookies, adapted from the life-changing Ovenly ‘secretly vegan’ Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, are loaded with chocolate chunks and crunchy toasted pecans, with the miso imparting a depth of flavour that I never want to live without in a cookie ever again. You can’t taste the miso. You would never pick it out as an ingredient. It’s a little salty, sure, and plays nicely with the flaky salt on top of the cookie, but really it just adds something. Something good.
Oh, and did I mention these are vegan AND gluten-free? And if you don’t tell anyone, they won’t know it. I fed them to co-workers and we reached the consensus that these cookies are in fact, out of this world good. You could also just make these with plain old flour or white spelt flour if you’d like, though I do recommend giving the GF version a go. You’ll be surprised. Make sure to let them chill in the fridge for at least an hour or two, preferably 12 hours if you have it. But an hour or two worked just fine for me.
Chocolate Chunk, Pecan + Miso Cookies {vegan, gf}
Ingredients
- 100 g / 3/4 cup sweet rice flour
- 100 g / 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
- 50 g / 1/2 cup chickpea/besan flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
- 230 g / 1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped 70% dark chocolate
- 100 g / 1 cup lightly toasted pecans, roughly chopped
- 110 g / 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 100 g / 1/2 cup raw caster sugar
- 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp mild extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 3 tsp white miso paste
- flaky salt, to sprinkle
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum. Add the chopped chocolate and pecans to the flour mixture and stir to evenly incorporate. In a separate large bowl, whisk the sugars with the olive oil, water, vanilla and miso until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, and then stir with a wooden spoon until combined and there are no flour pockets. If using GF flours, mix until your heart is content. If using regular flour, do not overmix. Cover tightly, and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour or two and preferably 12 hours (this step is important for cookie perfection).
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line two baking trays with baking paper. Remove dough from the fridge and use an ice cream scoop or a tablespoon to scoop dough into your desired cookie size - mine were about 2 tbsp worth of dough. Sprinkle the balls of dough with flaky salt, and bake for 12 to 13 minutes, or until the edges are just golden. Do not overbake. Best eaten when cool, if you can wait.
Notes
“Harold Crick: Well, goodnight.
Ana: Want a cookie?
Harold: Oh, no.
Ana: Oh c’mon. They’re warm and gooey and fresh out of the oven.
Harold: No, I don’t like cookies.
Ana: You don’t like cookies. What’s wrong with you?
Harold: I don’t know.
Ana: Everybody likes cookies.
Harold: No, I know.
Ana: After a really awful no-good day, didn’t your mama ever make you milk and cookies?
Harold: No. My mother didn’t bake. The only cookies I ever had were store-bought.
Ana: Hm. Okay. Sit down.
Harold: No, I’m —
Ana: No. Sit down. Now — eat a cookie.”
– Stranger Than Fiction
^ One of my all-time favourite movies. And they get it right about cookies. Cookies always help, when you’re having a really awful no-good day. Like Ana, I force them upon people. Because I believe in the power of the cookie.
This may be my new favorite vegan cookie recipe. The saltiness and depth of flavor is amazing. I always fiddle with cookie recipes to make them healthier (using whole wheat pastry flour and substituting some stevia crystals for part of the sugar). Even with those changes, these turned out so well! I used cane sugar instead of caster sugar and used coconut sugar instead of brown sugar. They had great texture. I might consider using fewer chocolate chips and more pecans next time.