These cookies were on my to-bake list for a solid minute. Mostly because the idea of working with brown rice, while a ton of fun, especially in baking, just sounded laborious. The idea was to use brown rice to make a flour, since I have made flours out of grains in the past. However, when processing brown rice into flour, it takes a few extra steps, compared to an almond flour, where you just have to grind almonds down once in a food processor. Since brown rice still has the grain shell on it, just grinding it down once in a spice grinder or food processor is not enough. After the first round of the spice grinder, I put the flour through a sieve, and still found chunks of un-blended brown rice. I then had to re-blend the sifted-through brown rice flour, since I found it to be too coarse even after it managed to go through the sieve. I ended up blending and sifting the brown rice a total of 4 times to get it to a similar consistency and feel as mochiko. So you can either do that yourself, or just buy brown rice flour. I recommend the latter, because cleaning up the brown rice chunks off my floor was far from delightful. The reason why I wanted to use brown rice specifically was because I really wanted this toasty, buttery shortbread cookie, and the toasty notes of brown rice specifically sounded perfect for that.

Since these cookies are made with 100% brown rice flour, they are 100% gluten-free! Instead of using just an egg yolk for the dough, I did use a whole egg, since the egg white is like an insurance policy binding agent for the dough, while also adding in a little more moisture to hydrate the brown rice flour with as well. Inside of the cookies, I wanted to stuff them with a caramel-y filling and some hojicha to reinforce the toasty notes. Hojicha is a toasted green tea, specifically sencha, which has a nutty flavor to it. I personally love it on its own, but it works well with flavors like brown butter and brown rice, both of which are being used in the cookie dough itself! I decided on miso de leche as the filling, which is made by taking dulce de leche, and mixing it with white miso paste to create a super addicting salted caramel. The white miso paste offers a milder flavor profile, while also adding in a pleasant, creamy saltiness the contrasts the super sweet dulce de leche beautifully. Now you can make your own dulce de leche from scratch, but in my case, I happened to have some leftover cajeta(which is basically dulce de leche but made from goat’s milk and scented with cinnamon), lying around, so I just used that. That and making it from scratch, when so little was called for in this recipe, would be extremely time-consuming and kind of not worth it. But that’s my take on the manner.

Makes 9 2-inch cookie sandwiches:
For the brown rice shortbreads:
1 stick unsalted butter, browned
8oz finely ground brown rice flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
A pinch of salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp vanilla
1 whole egg

In a bowl, whip together all of your ingredients to form a dough. Allow the dough to hydrate, covered, in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Then on a nonstick surface, preferably lined with cornstarch, roll out the dough to about 1/8 inch-thickness. Cut out 2-inch rounds, repeating with the rest of your dough. Space out your rounds to be 2 inches apart on a lined sheet tray. Bake at 325F for 15 minutes.

For the miso de leche:
6oz dulce le leche
.5oz white miso paste

In a pot on low heat, mix together the two ingredients until they dissolve into one another. While the miso de leche is still warm and pourable, add about 1 tbsp on top of each cookie, spreading it into a thin, even layer.

To garnish:
Hojicha powder

Dust the miso de leche with hojicha powder, then sandwich the cookies together, miso de leche/hojicha sides facing one another.