If your kids love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I think they’re gonna love these miso peanut butter and jelly sandwich cookies. Mine certainly did! They’re cute little peanut butter cookies filled with jam in the middle, sealed and baked like mini pies, and garnished with a jam glaze to tie the PB&J flavor all together.
To be super honest, I think these cookies do take a lot of effort, between the mixing, chilling, rolling, and sandwiching. You also need to take extra care with the dough. While it is very similar to my typical peanut butter cookie dough, it is more delicate when rolled thin. But done right, they come out super pretty, and fact: my coworkers loved them, even the failed batches!
I tried to simplify the recipe several times by rolling the dough into balls and stuffing the jam inside but that method was super messy. I just couldn’t get the cookies to come out consistently nice, and they ended up too soft from the jam spreading/exploding everywhere during baking. I even changed the flour ratio to make the dough drier so they don’t end up too soft, but they just didn’t come out quite the way I had envisioned.
After too many underwhelming attempts to “improve” these cookies, I ended up making them the original way I had made this recipe back in 2015. 😂 Talk about reinventing the wheel and failing epically!! I did include some improvements though, like incorporating miso, brown butter and a jam glaze – just like the one I used on my homemade PB&J pop tarts – making it tastier than ever.
Key ingredients
I think Skippy Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread with Honey (the brown jar) gave me the best result for these cookies. I think other kinds of natural or homemade peanut butter should work here as well. I also made them with Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter (the blue jar) but I thought the dough was slightly more crumbly.
Other key ingredients…
- Miso – My not so secret ingredient to add umami and savory depth. I use Miko brand sweet miso paste (50% less sodium). The amount of sodium in the 35 grams I used is about 831 mg, which is about a scant ½ teaspoon of kosher salt. Use this info to substitute salt in the recipe if you want to omit miso or to adjust if you’re using a different brand of miso.
- Jam – I use Bonne Maman strawberry guava preserve to fill these miso peanut butter cookies. All my coworkers thought it was a really nice unexpected flavor. I bought the jam at Costco ages ago, so I don’t believe the flavor is available anymore. But Bonne Maman does have a strawberry preserve and a guava preserve that you can get in store. You can use either one or mix them together. Or feel free to use any other jam flavor you prefer in your PB&J sandwich.
- Brown butter – My other secret ingredient! The nutty caramel-like notes from brown butter enhances the nuttiness of peanut butter, adding a deeper layer of flavor that you may not detect but makes a huge difference.
Let’s walk through it step by step
Or feel free to skip to the recipe card.
1. First, brown the butter
Make brown butter and set it aside to cool down completely. Don’t rush it, give it a couple of hours to cool or even resolidify before you make the dough.
2. Make the peanut butter cookie dough
Cream peanut butter, brown butter and the sugars together.
Then beat in the rest of the wet ingredients.
Sift in flour and baking soda, and stir until the dough forms.
3. Prep and refrigerate the dough
Divide the dough into 2 and knead into balls. Then roll them out to ⅛” thick between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. Cut with cookie cutter
You can use a 2” cookie cutter to cut out the cold dough. Reroll scraps and keep cutting.
Transfer the cutouts to a lined tray. They are delicate so slide an offset spatula under the cutouts to transfer them without removing the cookie cutter.
Once your cutouts are safely on the tray, then slide the offset spatula out and remove the cookie cutter. Keep them refrigerated while you work and while you preheat the oven.
5. Assemble
Fill each cutout with jam, add the top piece and seal the edges using a fork.
6. Bake
Sprinkle cookies with granulated sugar and bake until golden brown around the edges.
7. Glaze
When cookies cool completely, make the jam glaze and drizzle on top as much or as little as you want.
Hungry for more?
Miso Peanut Butter Jelly Cookies
Equipment
- Rolling Pin
- 2-inch cookie cutter
Ingredients
Peanut butter cookies
- 2 oz (58 g) unsalted butter, brown
- ½ cup (127 g) peanut butter
- ½ cup (100 g) brown sugar
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar, divided
- 2 tablespoon (35 g) miso paste, see notes
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon (5 g) pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cup (168 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon (3 g) baking soda
- 5 tablespoon (100 g) jam, see notes
Jam glaze
- 1 ½ tablespoon (30 g) jam, see notes
- ¾ cup (75 g) powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) milk
- 3 pinches of kosher salt
Instructions
- Brown butter – Place the butter in a light colored saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter melts, it will become foamy. When the foam subsides, you will see clear bubbles, start whisking continuously at this point to keep the milk solids from burning. When the butter is caramel in color and smells nutty, remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.2 oz unsalted butter
- Cream butter with sugar – Add peanut butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar (reserving 1 tablespoon for later) to the cooled brown butter. Beat with the paddle attachment for at least 2 minutes until incorporated.½ cup peanut butter, ½ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup granulated sugar
- Add remaining wet ingredients – Add miso paste, egg, vanilla extract, and beat again for another 2 minutes until completely incorporated and creamy.2 tablespoon miso paste, 1 large egg, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Combine dry ingredients – Sift flour and baking soda directly into the bowl with the wet ingredients. Stir until the dough is formed.1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon baking soda
- Prep dough – Divide dough into 2 portions and knead into balls. Roll out to ⅛” thick between two pieces of parchment paper. Place them on a tray and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Cut with cookie cutter – Take a sheet of dough out of the fridge and cut with a 2” cookie cutter. I use a Linzer cookie cutter without the middle insert. Place each cutout on a parchment lined tray and keep refrigerating as you work. The dough is delicate, especially when it starts to come back to room temperature, slide an offset spatula under the cutout to transfer it instead of using your hand. Place parchment paper in between layers of cutouts so they don’t stick together. Reroll scraps and keep cutting until all the dough is gone.
- Preheat the oven – Set the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
- Fill – Place 12 or 13 cutouts on a large lined baking tray. Fill each with a rounded ½ teaspoon of jam. Place another cutout on top and seal the edge with a fork.5 tablespoon jam
- Bake – Sprinkle the reserved granulated sugar over the top and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 12 – 13 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown. Bake one tray at a time.¼ cup granulated sugar
- Cool – Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack before adding glaze.
- Make the glaze – Add jam, powdered sugar, salt and milk to a small bowl. Whisk until smooth. The glaze should be quite thick, if it is too thin, you can add a little more powdered sugar to thicken it up.1 ½ tablespoon jam, ¾ cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, 3 pinches of kosher salt
- Decorate the cookies – Transfer the jam glaze to a pastry bag or a ziploc bag, snip the corner of the bag and drizzle it over the cookies making a criss cross pattern. Allow the glaze to dry before storing.
Notes
- Miso: the amount of miso I use contains 831 mg of sodium which is equivalent to about a scant ½ teaspoon of kosher salt if you want to omit miso.
- Jam: I use strawberry guava jam but any jam should work. Keep the jam cold when filling so it doesn’t spread too much.
- Storage: you can store your miso PB&J cookies in an airtight container at room temp for 3 – 5 days. You can freeze the cookies for 3-6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!
I love how these are filled cookies and the classic flavour combo is brilliant.
Anything peanut butter and jelly is an instant winner in my books – these cookies look delicious!
Yum, these sound delicious! I love peanut butter and jelly so these sound perfect 🙂