And we’re back to cookies with weird (but tasty) crap in them.
First things first: nerd alert! You’ve been warned.
I’ve been working on a signature cookie for my team at work. The idea is to include this cookie along with the traditional list of holiday goodies in the boxes I give to professional colleagues. Dude…you were warned.
Officially, the department is called Institutional Research and Academic Administration but we call ourselves IRAA (Ira) because we’re chill like that. During a recent planning day at Via Corona, we tried out some options (and by “try” I mean I forced them into a surprise team building activity that involved hot ovens…in the middle of summer. I really know how to treat my team well.).
While we’ve narrowed it down considerably (we all agree there should be lots of colored sprinkles), the recipe needs quite a bit of tweaking before we’ve got something we think really represents our team.
In the meantime, here is an early contender. It’s another Christina Tosi hack but if you like colored sparkles and Captain Crunch berries, these babies are right up your alley. That’s right, this recipe includes a crunch made of crunch berries. You are welcome.
Captain Crunch Berry Cookies
adapted from the Momofuko Milk Bar cookbook
For the captain crunch crunch
Ingredients
- 2 C captain crunch cereal
- 1/4 C (50g) sugar
- 2 TBS (10g) milk powder
- 1/4 tsp (1g) kosher salt
- 4 TBS (50g) melted butter
Instructions
- Heat oven to 275 degrees
- Pour the cereal into a medium bowl and crunch them up a little. Add the milk powder, sugar and salt. Toss to mix. Add-in the butter and toss to coat.
- Spread the clusters on a parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 20 minutes, giving the pan a good shake every 8 minutes or so. Allow to cool completely. Try not to each entire batch before they go into the cookies.
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons glucose (or 1 tablespoon corn syrup)
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons almond extract (original recipe calls for clear vanilla extract)
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- 2/3 cup milk powder
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
- 1 heaping cup (or more) of the captain crunch crunch
- large crystal sanding sugar (if desired)
Directions
- Combine the butter, sugar, and glucose (or corn syrup) in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs and almond extract, and beat for 7 minutes (Set a timer!)
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the bread flour, milk powder, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and rainbow sprinkles; mix just for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
- On low speed (or by hand…do it by hand), add the captain crunch crunch and fold until the flour mixture is just incorporated.
- Using a medium sized scoop (or about 2 tablespoons per cookie) portion out the dough onto a parchment lined sheet pan.
- Pour sanding sugar into a shallow plate or dish. Plop scooped dough onto the sanding sugar. Using a flat-bottomed glass, flatten cookie to about 3″. If the dough is sticky, first dip the surface of the cup or glass in sugar, then flatten, repeating for each cookie (note, you may have to sacrifice the first cookie in the flattening process to get the bottom of the cup sticky enough to hold the sugar so that it doesn’t stick to the rest of them. Sacrifice one for the good of the many and all that).
- Line dough disks into cookie sheet separating layers with two sheets of parchment. Wrap the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do NOT bake your cookies from room temperature, they wont bake correctly.
- Heat oven to 350ºF
- Arrange the chilled dough on parchment (or silpat) lined pan, no more than 8 per pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. They should be lightly browned on the top, and golden brown on the bottom.
- Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack.