Miso Is The Secret Ingredient You Need To Add To Your Chocolate Cake

Every serious baker has a key ingredient they swear by to elevate their homemade ultimate chocolate cake. Depending on who you ask, some will tell you to add coffee or buttermilk — some even add red wine to chocolate cake batter. One thing most bakers can agree on, though, is the flavor-enhancing role of salt in a delicious chocolate cake (many even say you're probably not adding enough salt).

While tried-and-true salt is undoubtedly great, there's another deeply savory ingredient that you need to try adding to your next chocolate cake: miso paste. The distinctly umami kitchen staple used widely in Japan and other Asian countries to make a variety of dishes — including miso soup, curries, and stews — is made from cooked soybeans and salt, which have been fermented with koji, a mold made from malted barley or rice (or a combination of both). While there are various types and styles of miso, including white and red varieties, when added to recipes, the paste is known to amplify the flavor of the dish.

When mixed into chocolate cake batter, miso paste functions similarly to salt, adding an undertone of flavor depth, while balancing and complementing the sugary goodness in the recipe. Furthermore, it takes your cake to a whole new level, as it pairs with and boosts the perfectly earthy, bitter flavor compounds in cocoa, resulting in an extra complex and sultry bite of chocolate cake every time.

Adding miso to your favorite fudgy chocolate cake recipe is surprisingly easy, once you have the right ingredients (you can find miso paste at your local Asian supermarket and at most grocery stores). While technically you can use whatever miso you have on hand, white or awase (a blend of white and red) miso varieties, which include koji made from rice or barley, work best. Because they spend less time fermenting than red miso varieties, they'll give your cake a milder, more subtle, and less salty miso taste.

Miso paste has a creamy texture, similar to thickened honey or smooth peanut butter. To add miso to your batter, simply mix it in with the butter and sugar during the creaming stage, or whisk it until combined with your wet ingredients like milk and eggs. King Arthur Baking suggests 2 tablespoons of miso paste as a general rule of thumb, for every cup of flour your recipe calls for.

A few important considerations to note: If you swap miso into your go-to cake recipe, you also must remember to omit the salt since the miso paste will cover your cake's salty taste. And if you opt for a red miso variety, note that the characteristically savory flavor will be more noticeable, pronounced, and even pungent (which might be a good thing, depending on the taste you're going for). If you go this route, you might just need to use less.

Once you try adding miso paste to your chocolate cake, you won't look back. In addition to using the ingredient in a variety of traditional Japanese dishes, keeping some miso in the fridge presents an array of flavor opportunities for your next chocolate cake — and other bakes like chocolate brownies.

While you're adding miso to the batter, toss in a dash of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves to your dry ingredient blend to give your cake an element of warm, savory spice. Once your miso chocolate cake is baked, frost it with a silky sesame buttercream to really boost the earthy, umami flavor notes.

It can also be extremely rewarding to experiment with different bright citrus fillings like lemon curd or orange marmalade, which are also accentuated nicely alongside miso. Try your hand at crafting a miso pumpkin butter filling. You can even add candied ginger between cake layers, or as a spicy topping. Drizzle your cake with homemade caramel sauce — adding miso to the sauce in place of salt for a true umami flavor boost to your chocolate cake. With miso, the flavorful possibilities are endless.