If you Give A Mouse a Momofuku Milk Bar Compost Cookie...

 Compost Cookies are multifaceted: crispy, chewy, sweet, salty.

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie....

Sweet, but not easy, Compost Cookies (do you love that name?)  are the kind of cookies you need to make a project out of.  Because if you're like me, first, you ate all the potato chips before you found the time to make them. Wait, what? Cookies with potato chips?  Not only that, there's more, lots more, including ground coffee...!?

The next time, you bought the chips and the pretzels, but you didn't realize you needed milk powder, and glucose (see below for source!).  And then finally, you need butterscotch chips, not just chocolate chips (and make those mini chocolate chips, by the way) to make these danged things.  Oh, and that finally you got organized and read the entire recipe and saw that you actually need to make a graham cracker crust first (yes, FIRST, you have to make a recipe in order to make the recipe) and you don't have any graham crackers on hand, of course.

Hmm, it's slow going, but I did it.

The reward?  Here are some of the reactions to these amazing cookies that have it all: 

"These are the best cookies I think you've ever made!" ( from my son Andy). (And I've made a lot of good cookies through his 22 years!)

"They have what in them?  Potato chips and ground coffee?  I don't think I want one." (from our neighbor's son.)  Then, after trying one:  "Can I pay you to make these for me?" (Thanks, Dirk!)

"These are even better than the ones they make at their store in the city!" (from our other neighbor's daughter Liz, who lives in Manhattan).  Wow, Liz, thanks! Maybe because they were fresh and warm out of the oven?

No matter.  Make these cookies if you have a cookie monster in your life, or if you are one.   But just plan ahead.  You'll thank me later.

Compost Cookies are complicated!

 
Click on the link below for the amazing Momofuku Milk Bar Compost Cookies:
http://milkbarstore.com/main/press/recipes-and-how-tos/#compost

Some things I learned in making this recipe three times:

• Cream the butter and sugar together for the full amount of time in a stand mixer, like a Kitchen-Aid - a portable mixer will not work.  

• Not only should the dough be refrigerated ahead of time, but the baking sheets should be also, otherwise the cookies will brown too quickly. (I made this mistake.)

• You can double the recipe, and the cookie dough ages well for 1 or 2 days, just be sure the baking sheets are refrigerated too, as above. (Especially helpful if you want to prepare the dough today, and bake the cookies off tomorrow, which you may want to do, since they take so darn long to prepare!)

• Use Cape Cod brand potato chips which are sturdy and Herr's mini pretzels.  

• You can buy milk powder in any grocery store.

•  Glucose can be found at Michael's with the Wilton cake decorating supplies.   

You can take out Christina Tosi's cookbook, Momofuku Milk Bar, from our library's intralibrary loan program.  What a fun book to cook from or even just to read. (Christina Tosi recently appeared as a judge on the Food Network's show "Chopped".)

The renowned Momofuku restaurant group in New York City is run by David Chang, who hired the talented Christina Tosi to work on the management side of his business, but who was always baking and bringing in unusual desserts for the staff.  David prevailed upon Christina to create desserts for his restaurant with the evolutionary end result being the creation of the stand-alone baker(ies - there are now two) Momofuku Milk Bar from whence this cookbook came.

By the way, Momofuku means "lucky peach" in Japanese.

Also, if you love to cook or just eat, sign up for my cooking demo/and class, the Science of Cooking, here in the Library on August 5th, Tuesday, from 1 - 3, sponsored by the Adult Summer Reading Program.

We will be cooking, tasting, and learning about the Science of Cooking using Jersey fresh fruits and veggies.  Sign up on our Events Calendar - hope to see you there!

Diane Whitman
@whitlibrarian
Reference Librarian
With Apologies to "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie..."