Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies

Not many pictures, as time was tight. These are from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook. I did not adapt these enough that I feel comfortable posting a recipe.

They are very, very good—slightly salty, and crunchy and gooey at the same time. I normally don't even like marshmallows, but the minis are perfect here. Christina Tosi lists a version with Fruity Pebbles instead of Corn Flakes and without chocolate chips. I didn't grow up eating "sugar cereal," and that still sounds amazing.

Yes, I have a crush on Milk Bar, but it's not blind. I have tested three cookie recipes in the past two weeks, several from Milk Bar, and I have thrown away three batches of cookie dough. It was painful. They were not nice enough to give, and I had to ask myself my standard "do I want this [food I am looking at] in the garbage or on my butt?" Crude, but it works.

The winners completely redeem the book though.

This was my second take on the recipe, and I felt confident enough to double it.

Really strange-looking cookie dough

This was not a good idea, as it didn't come close to fitting in my 5 quart KitchenAid.

I also made the cookies a lot smaller, using a flat scoop from a #40 or tablespoon disher. This is equivalent to a cookie scooped by a dinner-tablespoon. I baked them for only 8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Why did I throw away the first batch? Warning, dorkinesss ahead!

First, I used the Christmas variation that mixed in crushed candy canes, and did not like it. I didn't think I would, but I thought it was worth trying.

Second, I used the wrong flour. My miserly tendances led me to use bleached all-purpose flour. Christina Tosi calls for King Arthur unbleached bread flour, and I was unwise to ignore this.

As I read in BakeWise, cookies are controlled by their very low moisture level. The moisture level is, in turn, influenced by the protein level of the flour. King Arthur Flour has very high protein levels in their flours in general. For example, the protein level in their AP flour is 11.7%, higher than almost every other brand (Cook's Illustrated and TheArtisan.net). KAF bread flour is 12.7% protein.

Cookies from my first batch resembled terrible fried eggs, bulging in the middle with a huge spread and very thin, tough margin. I didn't have any bread flour (sigh—I usually have six types of flour on hand), so I used the very strong (high in protein) King Arthur AP flour instead of the softer bleached flour. The new cookies were still pretty flat, but good enough to share.

Bleached all-purpose flour is almost always softer (lower in protein) than unbleached all-purpose flour. According to Bakewise, this is only because of convention and not because of the bleaching.

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