blueberry & cream cookie

I don't know why, but the momofuku empire fascinates me. I'll never eat in one of their restaurants, probably will never cook anything out of their cookbooks, but everytime I see one of their Milk Bar recipes, I get excited. They are usually over the top, complicated, out of the ordinary and cool. (I'm not sure what gives a recipe a cool factor, but for me, if it has Christina Tosi's name attached to it, it's cool.) And they are coming out with a baking cookbook this fall. I cannot wait! Wonder if anyone would be interested in doing a baking club for that one, like the ones for Baked, and Dorie's books... Anyone?

Anyways, out of the few recipes available online, I've tried the compost cookie, which was awesome. I still have the amazing sounding banana cake, the chocolate malt cake and the crack pie to try... and there's copycat versions of their cornflake cookie and their corn cookie on my list too. But for now, a simple enough cookie featuring dried blueberries and milk crumbs.

There are two components to the recipe, the milk crumbs, that have to be baked and cooled completely, and the cookie dough in which they get incorporated, that needs to chill 24 hours before being baked. On their website, the ingredients for the blueberry and cream cookie lists white chocolate, but the recipe off the bon appetit website didn't include white chocolate chips, so I left them out too, since we're not huge fans.

blueberry & cream cookie

adapted from bonappetit

milk crumbs

3/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 275°F. Line large rimmed baking sheet with parchment. Combine milk powder, flour, sugar, cornstarch, and coarse salt in medium bowl; toss to mix evenly. Add butter; stir with fork until clusters form. Spread mixture evenly on prepared sheet. Bake until crumbs are dry and crumbly but still pale, about 10 minutes. Cool Milk Crumbs completely on sheet. Can be made 1 week ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

cookies

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 large eggs
5 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 1/2 cups milk crumbs
1 1/2 cups dried blueberries

Combine butter, both sugars, and corn syrup in large bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until fluffy and pale, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, about 3 minutes. Add eggs; beat on medium-high speed until mixture is very pale and sugar is completely dissolved, about 10 minutes. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; beat on low speed just until blended, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Add Milk Crumbs; mix on low speed just until incorporated. Remove bowl from mixer. Stir in blueberries just until evenly distributed (dough will be very sticky).

Using 1/4-cup ice cream scoop for each cookie, drop dough onto 2 large rimmed baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 24 hours. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled until baking time.

Position 1 rack in top third and 1 rack in bottom third of oven and preheat to 375°F. Line 2 large (18x12-inch) rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Transfer 6 chilled dough scoops to each sheet, spacing at least 4 inches apart (cookies will spread). Bake cookies, 2 sheets at a time, until golden, reversing sheets halfway through baking, 20 to 22 minutes total. Repeat with remaining chilled dough, cooling and relining sheets between batches. Transfer cookies to racks; cool completely. DO AHEAD Can be made 3 days ahead. Store in airtight containers at room temperature.

The raw dough is interesting, as I'm used to feeling the sugar as I bite into it, but in this case, the dough is completely smooth, but for the milk crumbs that are evenly dispersed in the batter. It's very interesting. The dough has some kind of aftertaste, that I can't quite place.

I used a 2-3 tbsp cookie scoop to portion out my cookies before chilling them for the requisite 24 hours. I baked them for 12 minutes, and they were just done. From what I can tell from the Milk Bar website, they are quite pale in color, and that's what I was trying to do as well, but the outside of the cookie is a bit golden. I managed to get 9 on a sheet nicely, but they did spread some.

Straight from the oven, you definitely taste the butter in those cookies, then you get the creaminess, the bites containing a blueberry are a very nice surprise of fruity chewiness. I was presently surprised that we could still make out the milk crumbs in them.

Completely cool, they taste less like butter, and they're pretty chewy, but not dry or cakey. It does make a  lot of cookies, so I froze some of the baked cookies, as well as the raw dough. I cooked the frozen dough straight from the freezer, for about 15 minutes, and they turned out just as good as the fresh cookies. I brought a box of them to a work meeting, and they got rave reviews. In fact, I think they may have made me new friends.