Cornflake Crunch, Snickerdoodles, and Nostalgia Oh My!
Also, the newsletter is getting sent on Mondays from now on
Well… Typically you get this email on Saturday mornings, but clearly that didn't happen. Between a not perfect bake last week and some difficulties scheduling the post, the newsletter I envisioned didn't pan out.
But thankfully, that allowed for two things to happen:
I was able to *finally* iron out my issues with flour and make a cookie that didn't spread into oblivion the second it got into the oven
I've decided that from now on I am going to send the newsletter out on Mondays! I bake on Sundays and end up taking my time putting together pictures and writing it, but I have the time on Sundays to just write it and schedule it for the following day
So, this newsletter will be a little jam-packed, but we can learn a lot from my mistakes from cornflake crunch-chocolate chip-marshmallow cookies and my success snickerdoodle cookies.
Let's get baking
So you can just buy any type of flour and get the same results, right?
WRONG! YOU ARE SO WRONG NICK FROM TWO WEEKS AGO!
That's what I wish I knew before restocking on flour. I was at my local Publix a couple of weeks ago and needed flour, so I thought I'd be thrifty and buy any ole flour that cost the least — but I ended up baking in obscurity for two straight weeks because of my error.
Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with generic grocery store flour, but different flours have different applications.
Depending on what the protein level of the flour is, you could end up with a perfectly crispy and chewy cookie that is buttery and not too greasy OR a cookie that spreads beyond recognition, burns on the edges before the center is fully cooked, and leaks butter all over the place.
I ended up with the latter.
So I consulted some more experienced friends via Twitter and re-read some baking cookbooks I have lying around to discover the error of my ways. Buying a flour that didn't allow for the butter to absorb properly for a cookie ended up with sub-par results (even though they were both still delicious in their own right).
The biggest takeaways from the great cookie debacle of 2020 were to get the *right* all-purpose flour and that Christina Tosi's Cornflake Crunch is a snacking masterpiece.
I need Cornflake Crunch in everything
The cookie itself, a chocolate chip/marshmallow cookie that features the Cornflake Crunch, is excellent, and you should check out the recipe for it here to make it for yourself (with the right flour), but you can (and SHOULD) use this crunchy, salty, sweet cereal-and-milk-but-better snack in any dessert.
The full list of ingredients can be found here, but making this is super easy and requires only a few things. The only item that might be hard to find in a grocery store is milk powder, but you can get enough to last you a lifetime on Amazon for only a few dollars (but you'll be making this crunch so often you should work through it sooner than later).
Making this is essentially three steps.
First, you crush the cornflakes in your hands until they are about ¼ their average size. When done, you add the milk powder, sugar, and salt while tossing gently to combine. Then you incorporate your melted butter, allowing it to clump up a little — and you are essentially done.
All that is left is throwing it in a preheated 275-degree oven for around 20 minutes, or until it is bubbly, golden brown, toasty, and the scent of buttery goodness has filled your apartment and soul.
I invested in a Silpat to make these baking jobs easier but using a parchment paper-lined sheet pan works just as well. The ended up going into cookies that were good but not great because of how much butter they leaked, but my next attempt will get more attention.
In the meantime, put this stuff on everything! Especially ice cream — trust me.
Tasting this Snickerdoodle made me nostalgic for Max Sticks
I'm not sure what your elementary school lunch experience was, but mine was a nice mix of hot lunch and taking lunch from home.
My mother was an excellent baker and packed legendary lunches, but something I'll never forget is getting a cookie card with my hot lunch and redeeming a slightly warm and soft snickerdoodle cookie.
When I took a bite of these cookies I just made, I was instantly back in my school uniform, waiting for the lunch lady to give me the cookie after swapping the card.
I'd get to the lunch table and eat the cookie first before anything else every time — something I can see myself doing with this cookie too.
Ingredients
This recipe was from Stella Park's Bravetart cookbook, something I think everyone should buy if they want to get good at baking. This is where I got my cookie flour breakthrough, where she specifies to use Gold Medal brand all-purpose bleached flour. It made all the difference in the world.
The original ratio produces about 13 cookies according to the cookbook, but I wanted to take these to the office in addition to having enough to share with my fiancée and the rest of my family.
Cookies:
2 ⅓ cups or 10 ½ ounces of all-purpose flour (Gold Medal or something similar is best)
1 stick or 4 ounces of unsalted butter that is pliable but not cool
½ cup or 3 ½ ounces of refined or virgin coconut oil that is solid but creamy
1 ½ cup or 10 ½ ounces of sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons of kosher salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
⅛ teaspoon of grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 large egg, cold from the fridge
Cinnamon-Sugar Dusting:
¼ cup or 2 ounces of sugar
2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, or to taste
2 teaspoons of grated cinnamon, or to taste
Making to Dough
So… this was super easy to make if I am being honest.
Typically I cream together butter, sugars, eggs, etc but this time, the creaming process was more of a heavy mixing of pretty much all the ingredients except the flour.
In a big bowl (a really REALLY big bowl if you are tripling the recipe like I did) mix your butter, coconut oil, sugar, salt, baking powder, and vanilla until it is light fluffy.
This will take about 5 minutes, depending on how good you are at scraping down the bowl's sides.
When properly fluffed, add the egg (one at a time if doubling) and incorporate until the mixture is smooth. This is where you add the flour (and possibly switch bowls to something bigger if you didn't think ahead like me).
Mix it until it forms a stiff dough, and all powderiness of the flour is incorporated entirely.
Shaping and Baking
This was hands down one of the easiest and most fun cookies to shape and bake. Unlike other recipes I have tried, this one didn't call for the dough to be chilled — so I didn't need to wait for that to happen and could bake immediately.
I have a cookie dough scoop, which made this process even easier, but this is where the snickerdoodle gets its cinnamon-sugar dusting that is extremely important to this process.
Scoop or portion out the dough into a ¼ to ⅔ cup ball that you roll in your hands. Once the balls are made, you gently roll them in your cinnamon-sugar dusting until completely coated.
When coated, place on your cookie sheet and then press the top down, so the circle becomes a ½ inch disc of deliciousness. When pressed down, add the additional cinnamon-sugar to the top of the cookie and put it into a preheated 400-degree oven.
These cookies bake interestingly.
For the first six minutes, they bake at 400-degrees to set the cookie's shape. After that, you rotate them and let them bake for an additional six to eight minutes at 350-degrees until they are firm on the edges and puffy in the middle.
You don't want to overbake these, because the soft texture and consistency make a snickerdoodle so good, in my opinion. The first batch I put in for six minutes and felt they were juuuuuust a little too soft, so for the next two, I let them sit the extra two minutes, and that did the trick.
These cookies with some milk or a scoop of ice cream are undefeated — or you could eat them fourth-grade style as I did back in the day and chase it with some max sticks and a small carton of whole milk.
That's all I have for this newsletter! Don't forget to follow @BakedwNick on Instagram to keep your feed loaded with baking content.
I am thinking about doing some sort of giveaway or raffle off a donation to the charity of choice for followers. Is that something y'all would be interested in?
Remember, going forward you can expect these on Mondays!
