cookie calendar - day 6: corn cookies

I can honestly say that Ange has been a friend to kitchen frolic since the very beginning of my little blog. I think she was one of my first Twitter followers! LOL. So I'm very happy that she was able to join me for the second year (that's two for two Ange!) in the Cookie Advent Calendar (you should also check out her 2012 Cookie Advent Calendar recipe, Coconut Macaroon)

I have yet to go to the famous Momofuku Milk Bar myself, although I have heard amazing things about their baked goods and my sister is a big fan. When Ange submitted this recipe I was really excited and can't wait to try it myself - hopefully her tweaks and instructions will help me master it in no time!

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guest post by Ange from food punk

When my food blogger buddy, Stephanie invited me to participate in her awesome cookie advent calendar again, I had the perfect recipe, a recipe that I had been spending months honing.

Momofuku Milk Bar makes the best comfort food desserts from cereal milk soft serve to birthday cake balls. My absolute favourite is their buttery corn cookie. East Village in New York is a bit of a hike for my constant corn cookie fix so thankfully Milk Bar recently opened a Toronto location. But their corn cookie is so popular that it’s often sold out. I finally decided to try the recipe at home.

The cookie dough for these corn cookies smells incredible too. Nothing reminds me of summer more than the smell of buttered corn and that’s exactly what the corn cookie batter smells like, even more so when it’s baking away in the oven. So if you miss summer as much as I do during sub-zero snowy winter months, these cookies will hold you over till summer comes back. Corn cookies’ golden colour and rich comfort-food quality also make them the perfect holiday cookie. They’ll add a golden glow to your holiday dessert table and they’re also great for snacking on while curled up by the fire with a steaming cup of tea in hand.

These are finicky cookies though, the recipe calls for unusual, hard-to-find ingredients and the oven has to be just the right temperature, the cookie dough has to be just the right temperature. Basically, these cookies are a challenge to make. But with a little practice, anyone can master the recipe for these addictive corn cookies. To get around using corn powder (which I couldn’t find anywhere locally), I bought freeze-dried corn from Whole Foods and blended it up in a blender to create my own corn powder. Alternatively, you can order corn powder from Milk Bar.

Christina Tosi, co-owner of Milk Bar makes a batch of corn cookies on an episode of the PBS food documentary series, Mind of a Chef. She insists that cookie dough has to be chilled for a minimum of an hour and the corn cookies need to be baked for 18 minutes. I only bake the cookies for 11 minutes. With some trial and error, I’ve made some alterations to the cookies for the home kitchen. I hope you’ll enjoy these scrumptious cookies as much as I do!

corn cookies
adapted from Momofuku Milk Bar

Ingredients

1 cup butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg 1 1/3 cups flour ¼ cup corn flour
2/3 cup freeze-dried corn powder (I blended freeze-dried corn) ¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons corn starch (for chewiness)

Recipe

• Cream butter and sugar together in bowl for about 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down sides of the bowl, add egg, beat for another 7 to 8 minutes.
• Reduce mixer speed to low, add flour, corn flour, corn powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together (1 minute max), do not over mix.

• Use a 2 3/4 –ounce ice cream scoop to portion out dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Chill dough in fridge for a minimum of 1 hour, maximum of 1 week. Cookies cannot bake at room temperature, the dough will not cook properly.
• When you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 °F.
• Arrange chilled cookie dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on cookie sheet to prevent them from sticking to each other as they melt down in the oven. Bake for 18 minutes or 11 minutes, depending on your oven.

• As the cookies bake, they should crackle and become golden brown around the edges and be a bright golden yellow in the middle.
• Cool the cookies completely before moving them. The cookies keep for 5 days or for a month in the freezer.

Happy holidays and Enjoy!

Ange Leung

Blog: http://foodpunk.ca/

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The recipe and all photos used in this blog post belong to Ange Leung / Food Punk and should not be reprinted without her express permission.