Miso Buttermilk Biscuits

When I first looked at the recipe matrix and saw Miso Buttermilk Biscuits were one of the fastest recipes to bake out of Dessert Person, I was more than happy to make them after a long week. My years of living in the south taught me the glory of a savory, fluffy biscuit—but this would be the first time I had ever heard of someone adding miso to them. Honestly, my first thought when I saw this part of the recipe was ‘it’s just a way to add a biscuit recipe to the book with some trendy spin’—but now I see why it’s a genius idea.

Something about seeing the ingredients for biscuits on my counter just makes me happy; it’s everything wholesome about baking. The only new ingredient for me was…can you guess? As far as I know, I’ve never had white miso paste before, at least not all on its own. Once I tasted the sharp soy taste, it made complete sense how this could work with a biscuit. Something about the mild sour and saltiness just works with the usual ingredients in a biscuit.

I think the fact that I knew this recipe would not take me five hours is what made me excited about each step. I was most unfamiliar with mixing the miso paste and buttermilk; it was very simple adding a bit of buttermilk with each whisking until it was pourable. Then it was the usual ‘mix the dry ingredients in a bowl’ step. I added in the pats of chilled butter to the flour mixture. At first, I was unsure how far to mash this, but I made sure it was flattened out and somewhat resembling of a biscuit texture.

Once I added in the miso buttermilk, it started looking like the typical sticky biscuit dough. It definitely pays off to roll out the dough, cut it into fourths, layer them and roll again to get the flakiness later on. While I typically use biscuit cutters for the next part, Claire simply calls for cutting them into squares. I seemed to have more than enough for sizes bigger than what is recommended in Dessert Person. After brushing them in melted butter, the dough squares only took about 20 minutes to bake into crisp, gorgeous biscuits.

I thought I was going to have a hard time during this project stopping myself from eating all the sweet desserts, but the breads and savory desserts are where I’m struggling to hold myself back. These biscuits are so addicting. Since I’ve had my share of biscuits, I can see where the square shape makes a difference in allowing such wonderful flakiness rise up in the oven. I loved the hint of miso with black pepper; it allows this biscuit to stand on its own without any need for gravy or other flavor additions. My husband and I did enjoy them with some honey, which added a great touch. If you’re looking for a spin on a biscuit, this will show you the variety this beloved baked good can offer while still providing the hearty comfort we all adore.

Claire has not yet made these biscuits on her YouTube channel, but I’ll make sure to post if she does!