I’ve been a big fan of corn for a long time. Corn on the cob, popcorn, cornbread. Growing up, my Dunkin’ Donuts treat was always a corn muffin (which still sounds better than a donut to me). Cornbread is something I want to explore more (I’m thinking herbed), and may end up being theme to focus on moving forward. These cookies, another from Christina Tosi at Milk Bar, are a whole new corn experience. I added chocolate and strawberry for a sweet/tart combination and they are pretty ridiculous.
A lot of the amazing flavor is in the freeze-dried corn (I like Karen’s Naturals). Once ground, the smell is so perfect it seems fake. The cookie isn’t dry like so much cornbread and it’s more salty. I added the mini chocolate chips for this reason (though they’re not needed), as well as the strawberry. Initially I wanted a strawberry filling, but using fresh strawberries made the cookie too wet, and they spread out instead of getting the dense rise. The strawberry on top helps dry out the berry while still flavoring the cookie.
Also, they look good. They look better than my cookies usually do, which is a goal of this blog.
Corn Cookies
Adapted (slightly) from Momofuku Milk Bar, by Christina Tosi
225 g butter room temperature – 1 cup (2 sticks)
300 g sugar –1 ½ cups
1 egg
225 flour – 1⅓ cups
45 g corn flour – ¼ cup
65 g freeze-dried corn (ground) – ⅔ cup
3 g baking powder – ¾ tsp
1 ½ g baking soda – ¼ tsp
6 g kosher salt – 1½ tsp
110g mini semisweet chocolate chips – ⅔ cup
Pint of strawberries
Dough
Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer with paddle attachment. Cream on medium high for about 2 minutes, add egg and beat for 7-8 minutes (until the butter is lighter in color, doubled in size and slightly iridescent).
Reduce the mixer to low speed and add flour, corn flour, corn powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips for just about 30 seconds – 1 minute. I recommend counting, it’s often done before 35 seconds. Do not over mix.
Scoop out cookies to a parchment lined tray (roughly a 1/4 cup of dough, I use a ice cream scoop), and flatten tops. Refrigerate for at least 2 hrs, up to 1 week.
Strawberry Hearts
Remove the leafy green bits.
Cut out the remaining stem with a small V-shape, you can do this with two short cuts.
**If the berry has a flatter side be sure to cut perpendicular to it.
Slice it top to bottom, slice off just the edges and then slices about a quarter of an inch thick. (They set better on the cookie without the rounded edge.)
Bake!
Oven to 350 F
Arrange cookies with 3-4 inches between. Add strawberry hearts on top, you won’t be able to push them into the cookie, so don’t try. It will only smash the berry.
Bake for 7 minutes, remove from oven, and carefully tap berry hearts into the softened dough. Bake another 9-10 minutes, until cookies are light brown on the very edges, and bright yellow on top.
Remove from oven and let cool on sheet at least 5 minutes — they will fall apart before then.