Shiitake Chip Chocolate Cookies By Chef Rob Rubba

Name: Shiitake Chip Chocolate Cookies By Chef Rob Rubba
Prep time: 15 s
Cook time: 10 s
Total time: 85 s
Yield: 1
Cuisine: International
Ingredients: All purpose flour; Vegan organic dark chocolate 68%; Sugar; Cocoa powder; Shiitake powder; Vegan butter; White miso

17 Mar 2025

Rob Rubba

Chef

Difficulty

Easy

Total Time

1H 25MIN

Cuisine

International

Ingredients

All purpose flour: 280 g

Vegan organic dark chocolate 68%: 145 g (chopped)

Sugar: 115 g

Cocoa powder: 25 g

Shiitake powder: 10 g

Vegan butter: 115 g (room temperature)

White miso: 15 g

These decadent, cocoa-rich cookies highlight the earthy, umami depth of shiitake mushrooms. Rubba, known for his creative approach at D.C.'s Oyster Oyster, recommends baking directly from frozen to maintain the perfect texture.

How to make Shiitake Chip Chocolate Cookies

01.

Mix the Ingredients

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine tempered butter, miso, sugar, and cocoa powder, mixing on medium speed until smooth and fully incorporated.
Add shiitake powder and chocolate, continuing to mix on medium speed until evenly distributed.
With the mixer on low speed, gradually add flour until just combined, forming a cohesive dough. Do not overmix.

02.

Roll and Freeze

Roll dough between two sheets of parchment paper to roughly ¼-inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter (chef recommends mushroom-shaped cutters for thematic presentation), cut into desired shapes and arrange on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Place cookies in the freezer for at least 1 hour, or until firm.

03.

Bake the Cookies

Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Bake cookies directly from frozen for 10 minutes.

04.

Serve

Allow to cool slightly on the baking sheet for 2–3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

17 Mar 2025

The Chef

As a young chef, Rob Rubba rose through the ranks working under a string of legends–Gordon Ramsay, Guy Savoy, and Charlie Trotter. At their restaurants, meat was a must, butter was a building block, and both were often used in excess. In 2013, Rubba moved to the D.C. area, making a name for himself with Hazel, a craft-centric multi-culti marvel that won the Restaurant of the Year award from the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan DC.

Heading up his own concept where he controlled the menu inspired deeper contemplation. “Once I had that carte blanche, I wondered, ‘Wow, where are some of these ingredients coming from?’,” Rubba says.

An epiphany emerged from his research and inner dialogue. “I realized that as much as I wanted to use a local producer for pork, chicken, and beef, it wasn't sustainable given our volume and need for set cuts of meat,” he says. “The deeper I looked, the more I realized that this wasn't the future of food. We've had this fabric pulled over our eyes that this is how we should operate as a restaurant, but that was all built out of convenience for the business.”

He embraced vegetarianism and began envisioning a restaurant rooted in sustainability, a term he defines as, “Finding ways to exist in the world with as minimal impact as possible, while looking at everything as a complete cycle with no waste. It’s about being in touch again with nature and the cycles of life, and letting that guide us more than the material world.”

The concept that came out of this soul searching was Oyster Oyster: a 28-seat tasting menu restaurant tucked away in D.C.’s buzzy Shaw neighborhood specializing in of-the-moment plant-forward cuisine (prepared vegan or vegetarian) crafted from ingredients sourced from local farmers, foragers, and specialty producers, and fortified by house-made ferments and larder projects.

“There were a lot of people who didn't think we'd be successful and told us we would close within the first six months,” says Rubba.

His detractors couldn’t have been more wrong. His vision paid off: Oyster Oyster holds a Michelin star, and in 2023, he won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef.

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