Sometimes life gets in the way of blog posts, and that’s okay. It’s probably how it should be, to be honest, unless the blog is one’s source of income. That’s not the case here, and so I return to you after many travel, work, and life experiences including the Florida sunshine, major work events/conferences, Maine black flies, wedding beer pong, flat tires, cookie contests, broken iPhone screens and crashed laptop hard drives, sickness, job interviews, and…moving. That about covers it.
BUT - Blueberry Corn Muffin cookies fix EVERYTHING. Okay, maybe they don’t fix tires or hard drives, but they would if they could! These cookies are a riff on Cristina Tosi’s Momofuku Corn Cookies, and they’re freakin' fantastic if I do say so myself. They’re slightly time intensive in that it’s important you have all the proper ingredients and follow the technique to a T, but they’re unique and totally worth every minute.
Remember these guys?
These are like a cookie-version of those, but maybe 100x better.
Happy Baking!
Adapted from Momofuku Milk Bar
MAKES ~15 Cookies
INGREDIENTS/SUPPLIES
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1.5 cups sugar (300g)
1 Tablespoon corn syrup
1 egg
1 and 1/3 cups AP flour (225g)*
1/4 cup corn flour or finely ground cornmeal (45g)
2/3 cup freeze-dried corn powder (65)**
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 teaspoons kosher salt***
1/2 cup dried blueberries (you can use fresh if you'd prefer, but use a few more)
stand mixer
2 large cookie sheets & parchment
food scale or cookie scoop (optional)
*This measurement in the Momofuku book perplexes me, because a cup of all-purpose flour weighs 120g, so 1.33 cups should be about 160g. Why she says it equals 225g is beyond me, but I always bake by weight so I use 225g of flour. If you don’t have a food scale, perhaps try 1.75 cups of flour instead?
**Freeze-dried corn powder is a specialty product that Momofuku sells online and in their stores. You can buy it from there, but if you’re ordering it shipping will make it insanely expensive. You can find Just Corn on Amazon or at some Whole Foods stores, and grind it up yourself - easy and much more cost effective!
***No, you cannot use regular salt. But - if you just don’t have kosher salt and can’t go buy some, use regular and reduce the measurement to 1tsp.
DIRECTIONS
Cream 2 sticks butter, 300g sugar, and 1TB corn syrup in your stand mixer on medium-high for two minutes.
Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl, add 1 egg, and cream on medium-high for 7-8 minutes, stopping once halfway through to scrape down the sides again.
While the mixer is going, in another mixing bowl, whisk briefly by hand your 225g flour, 45g cornmeal, 65g corn powder, 3/4tsp baking powder, 1/4tsp baking soda, and 1.5tsp kosher salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix on low until just combined, no longer than 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the 1/2c dried blueberries, and mix for 10-15 more seconds on low, just until the blueberries are distributed throughout the batter.
In order to make the cookies look beautifully uniform, you need to scoop the batter either with a cookie scoop or by weight. The original recipe calls for a 2.75oz scoop or a 1/3 cup measure, which would be fine, but I prefer to measure balls of dough at about 2.25oz.
Scoop the dough onto a wax paper or parchment lined cookie sheet, wrap the sheet in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least one hour, preferably two. At this point if you’re not going to bake the cookies that day, freeze the balls of dough on the sheet for one hour, then transfer them to a freezer ziplock bag and the dough will keep for up to 6 months, possibly longer. DO NOT BAKE THE COOKIES AT ROOM TEMPERATURE. Chilling is a must.
When you’re ready to bake heat your oven to 350F. Arrange the cookies a minimum of 3” apart on parchment lined cookie sheets (4” if you’ve used the larger cookie size; and don’t use the cold cookie sheet on which they were chilling).
Bake for 14-18 minutes, until just browned on the edges but still yellow in the center. Don’t overbake! You want the cookies to be nicely crispy on the outside/edges, but still chewy in the middle. Or…at least, I do.
Cool the cookies completely on their baking sheets, and enjoy! For an extra special treat, use them to make ice cream sandwiches with a berry or sweet cream flavored ice cream, or with jam!
