Raw Miso Chocolate Brownie Cookie Bites
I am so excited about this recipe because these raw miso chocolate brownie cookie bites are SO DELICIOUS. I cannot stop eating them, which is a problem because the recipe makes quite a few.
When I was coming up with this recipe, I wasn’t entirely sure how well the miso was going to work. It seems to just intermingle with the other flavours when I bake it into desserts. Raw was new territory. But I figured if I threw a handful of my absolute favourite things (cookies, chocolate, brownies, miso, dehydrated raw stuff) into a recipe, it would just work because it just would. And it just did!
These cookies are soft, with a baked consistency, despite being totally raw. They contain a little oil and nut butter which keeps them a bit fudgy, since oil doesn’t dehydrate. I used this little fact to my advantage when making these because I got the exact texture I was after.
Miso is a fermented food which means it’s good for your gut as it provides it with good bacteria which keeps us healthy and - just as importantly - happy. A happy gut helps support a happy mind. Miso is also rich in essential minerals and is a good source of B vitamins, vitamin E and folic acid. Using miso in raw baking means we won’t be destroying any of this goodness by heating it up.
The flours used in these cookies are oat flour and buckwheat flour. I decided not to use all buckwheat because despite loving the flavour, I didn’t want it to steal the show, but you could absolutely use all buckwheat if you don’t want to use oat flour (since it’s not strictly raw), or don’t have any.
Hazelnut butter is my nut butter of choice in this recipe because I love it. And I’ll let you into a secret. I roasted my hazelnuts before I made them into butter it because I prefer the flavour and I’m not a raw purist! You could totally try using a different nut butter if you’d like to. Something like peanut butter would, I’m sure, taste amazing and would have a noticeable flavour. Almond butter would work well but wouldn’t have a huge impact on the final flavour, so go for that if you don’t want the nut butter to be a major player in the final taste.
These cookies are not super sweet, but they are way sweet enough for me. Especially with raw chocolate drizzled on top. If you’d like them sweeter, I recommend just adding a little extra chocolate on top at the end.
The process for making these cookies is pretty simple. Ideally you need to soak your nuts beforehand, so try to be organised and do that the night before.
For the cookies, we simply make a paste with a majority of the ingredients, then stir in our flours, shape into cookies (ok this takes a little time) and dehydrate for……………48 hours. To be honest though, I did a taste test at 24 hours and they already tasted amazing. So depending on your level of patience you could definitely enjoy these after 24 hours. The extra day gave them a little more firmness which I like.
Ingredients
1 cup cashews, soaked for 4 hours up to overnight
1 cup walnuts, soaked for at least 8 hours up to overnight
1/2 cup dates (soaked in some warm water until soft if not already nice and gooey)
3 tablespoons maple syrup (not raw) or liquid sweetener of choice
1/2 teaspoon tamari
1/2 teaspoon rock or sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla powder or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 heaped tablespoons hazelnut butter (or nut butter of choice)
1 tablespoon coconut oil, gently melted
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons raw cacao
1 heaped teaspoon carob powder
2 teaspoons miso paste (I use brown but you can use what you have)
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1/2 cup raw buckwheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (not strictly raw) - use gluten-free if necessary
To drizzle on top after dehydrating: raw chocolate. I used a 35g bar of Raw Halo salted caramel mylk chocolate. As you can see from the photos I just went for a light drizzling, but by all means use more chocolate if you like. I would never discourage that…
Method
Turn on your dehydrator and prepare two trays with non-stick sheets. (You might be able to squeeze them onto one but I needed two)
Begin by blending your cashews and walnuts in a food processor until they have broken down into crumbs.
Add all of the rest of the ingredients apart from the coconut, buckwheat and oat flour (and chocolate) and blend until you have a fairly smooth dough. You will need to stop and scrape down the sides of your food processor several times. If the dough rolls up into a ball and jams your food processor before you’re happy with the consistency, break the ball apart and blend some more.
When you have a nice fairly smooth pliable sticky dough (it will have some texture from the nuts), transfer the mixture in a mixing bowl and stir in the flours. You’ll need to spend some time really combining everything. You might want to get your hands involved, or use a big spoon to really smoosh everything together. You should have something that resembles chocolate cookie dough.
The size of the cookies is up to you, but I recommend keeping them quite small and fairly thick. See my photos for reference. Remember, the cookies will come out of the dehydrator looking much the same as when you put them in, just a little smaller and shrunken down.
To shape my cookies, I first wet my hands slightly, I then rolled some dough into a ball roughly the size of an energy ball. Next, I pressed this down onto my non-stick mat to about 1/2 inch thickness, then turned if over and used wet fingers to shape the edges until they were smooth. I won’t pretend this was a super fast process, but I found it pretty relaxing! To finish, I indented a fork into the top for decoration.
Once you’ve done this with all of your dough, pop in your dehydrator at 115°F/46°C for up to 48 hours. By 24 hours they will already taste great, but if you have the patience to let them go a little longer they are even better after 48 hours.
Allow your cookies to cool on a cooling rack, then carefully melt your chocolate over a bain-marie and drizzle over the top.
I store mine in an airtight container in the fridge.