Momofuku Milk Bar
Page 7
[2 tablespoons]
2 g cornstarch
[½ teaspoon]
1 g kosher salt
[¼ teaspoon]
⅓ recipe Sweet Corn Cereal Milk
[175 g (¾ cup)]
1 egg
210 g heavy cream
[1 cup]
70 g sour cream
[¼ cup]
1. Grind the Cap’n Crunch to a powder in a food processor.
2. Transfer the cereal powder to a large saucepan and add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, corn powder, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk in the cereal milk and egg in a slow, steady stream, whisking until the mixture is clump-free.
3. Put the saucepan over medium-low heat and whisk casually but consistently, watching for the mixture to bubble and thicken, until it has the texture of a pudding or pastry cream—3 to 5 minutes. Scrape the mixture into a small bowl and transfer it to the fridge to cool for 1 hour (you don’t want the mixture to firm up completely).
4. Combine the heavy cream and sour cream in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip to soft peaks that hold a shape, but just barely. Do not overwhip.
5. Grab the bowl of slightly cooled corn pudding mixture and whisk it into the whipped cream, mixing it for 30 to 45 seconds, until it is a homogenous, slightly runny, totally corny whipped cream delight ready to be poured into a pie shell or Popsicle molds.
milk thistle is a little farm in upstate New York—Ghent to be exact, just a 2.32-hour minibus ride away from our kitchen—where five of our favorite people and sixty of our favorite cows live. Dante and Kristin Hesse, along with their three children and extended friends and family, care for, corral, and milk their herd of fussy yet endearing Jersey and Holstein cows, all of whom the Hesses know by name and sometimes speak to like unyielding nieces, nephews, aunts, or uncles.
The cows feed on as many natural pastures and as much homegrown hay as possible, though in dire straits and droughts, Dante will feed them a mix of soybeans and corn. The milk is organic and pasteurized but not homogenized, so it has a generous layer of cream on top and real flavor—that of fresh fields and pastures, mostly. I tasted milk from every local producer in the tristate area, and Milk Thistle was my favorite.
My pop worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dairy division for twenty-six years, fighting for small local farmers, writing court decisions, and making sure the big conglomerate organic dairy farmers (whose milk makes us yuppies feel better about ourselves, though the milk has no story, soul, or flavor and very little distinction) don’t suffocate heroes like the Hesses.
Dante bet on his love of the land, his cattle, and the art of making milk. He took out a loan and worked day and night to grow his dream, and he’s making it. Little by little. Just like us. We support one another, and we know that so much of our success is due to the hard work and dedication out in the fields and pastures of Milk Thistle Farm in Columbia County.
We closed down our kitchen one day this past summer, and went to see where the darling jugs of impossibly creamy and flavorful milk came from. We left with a deeper understanding of how to smile when it rains, the knowledge that skinned knees are as badass as sheet-pan burns, and a line drive to our hearts as a reminder that each jug of milk is made by a small family with skill, thought, and drive. Every drop of milk counts on that farm. The pigs and chickens are fed any leftover milk; a jug sold is part of a loan payment or a piece of used farm equipment to help expedite the milking and pasteurization process. Each jug, therefore, must count in our kitchen. We are a kindred family that survives, fortunately, by doing what we love.
Unfortunately, cookie dough is not my only vice. Sour cream and onion potato chips (the whole bag, in one sitting), sugary cereal by the handful, Cool Ranch Doritos (again, the whole bag, destroyed), crackers dipped in frosting, pretzels dipped in chocolate—you name the snack food—chances are it’s gone if I’m standing in the same room with it.
When building a dessert program, I knew part of my voice as a pastry chef, part of what would be lying around the kitchen, and part of what I’d naturally draw inspiration from, would be snack food. Everyone loves snack food. (Or at least everyone who works at Milk Bar.)
The crunch is all about filtering our snacking spells through our formal educations, making crunchy, textural elements all our own. Never too far from the familiar cornflake, pretzel, or cracker, we’ll make crunch out of almost anything the supermarket sells and then use it in something as fancy as a plated dessert or as simple as a cookie dough.
Each crunch recipe has a balance of salt and sugar as well as melted butter—the glue for the dry ingredients—and milk powder, which seasons and helps bind the mixture together once baked. The beauty of the crunch, besides the obvious sugar, butter, and snack-attack allure, is the way it’s baked. Slow and low in the oven yields the most amazing tender caramelization in every crunchy, snack-ridden handful, cookie, pie crust, or garnish.
cornflake crunch
MAKES ABOUT 360 G (4 CUPS)
This recipe was originally created to accompany the Cereal Milk Panna Cotta. It was one of those first-swing, home-run hits. It is incredibly simple to make and equally as versatile in its uses. Put some in a plastic bag and take it on the go as the best snack ever, or use it as an ingredient in the recipes that follow.
170 g cornflakes
[½ (12-ounce) box (5 cups)]
40 g milk powder
[½ cup]
40 g sugar
[3 tablespoons]
4 g kosher salt
[1 teaspoon]
130 g butter, melted
[9 tablespoons]
Elsewhere in this book: Cornflake crunch is also used in the Pumpkin Ganache dessert.
1. Heat the oven to 275°F.
2. Pour the cornflakes in a medium bowl and crush them with your hands to one-quarter of their original size. Add the milk powder, sugar, and salt and toss to mix. Add the butter and toss to coat. As you toss, the butter will act as glue, binding the dry ingredients to the cereal and creating small clusters.
3. Spread the clusters on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes, at which point they should look toasted, smell buttery, and crunch gently when cooled slightly and chewed.
4. Cool the cornflake crunch completely before storing or using in a recipe. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, the crunch will keep fresh for 1 week; in the fridge or freezer, it will keep for 1 month.
fruity pebble crunch
MAKES ABOUT 225 G (3 CUPS)
Any cereal will yield a delicious crunch. This recipe is a great example of different salt and sugar ratios from the cornflake crunch recipe, because Fruity Pebbles are sweeter. Knowing the sweetness and salt level of the cereal will help you adjust your sugar and salt amounts accordingly when making a crunch out of it.
120 g Fruity Pebbles
[¼ (17-ounce) box (2½ cups)]
20 g milk powder
[¼ cup]
12 g sugar
[1 tablespoon]
1 g kosher salt
[¼ teaspoon]
85 g butter, melted
[6 tablespoons]
Follow the procedure for the cornflake crunch, substituting the Fruity Pebbles for the cornflakes.
pretzel crunch
MAKES ABOUT 250 G (2 CUPS)
Because so many of our desserts for the restaurants are plated and served by a surly kitchen of 99.9 percent men, we wanted to come up with a deep, malted, surly crunch. This pretzel crunch straddles the line between savory and sweet. Toss this into some Chex Mix on Super Bowl Sunday, or serve it solo in a bowl at your next cocktail party.
100 g mini pretzels
[about ¼ (16-ounce) bag (2 cups)]
60 g light brown sugar
[¼ cup tightly packed]
25 g sugar
[2 tablespoons]
20 g milk powder
[¼ cup]
10 g malt powder
[1 tab
lespoon]
100 g butter, melted
[7 tablespoons]
In a pinch, substitute flour for malt powder, but part of the malty depth will be lost.
Follow the procedure for the cornflake crunch, substituting the pretzels for the cornflakes and adding the malt powder along with the sugar and milk powder.
ritz crunch
MAKES ABOUT 275 G (2 CUPS)
Any sort of cracker will work here if you adjust the sugar and salt slightly (like for the cereal crunch recipes), but Ritz crackers are the epitome of rich and amazing in my cracker repertoire.
110 g Ritz crackers
[1 sleeve]
100 g sugar
[½ cup]
20 g milk powder
[¼ cup]
2 g kosher salt
[½ teaspoon]
100 g butter, melted
[7 tablespoons]
Elsewhere in this book: Ritz crunch is used in the Celery Root Ganache dessert.
Follow the procedure for the cornflake crunch, substituting the crackers for the cornflakes.
cinnamon toast crunch
MAKES ABOUT 250 G (2 CUPS)
The cereal of the same name is excellent stuff, but this recipe is an homage to the cinnamon toast my grandma and ma made me as an after-school snack in my younger years. It is impossibly crunchy, and it plays into one of my most comforting flavor pairings: butter and cinnamon sugar. The one-minute butter-soaking step makes for a much different crunch than the others in this book.
100 g white sandwich bread
[¼ (1-pound) loaf]
115 g brown butter, just warm
[⅓ cup]
100 g sugar
[½ cup]
2 g kosher salt
[½ teaspoon]
2 g ground cinnamon
[1 teaspoon]
1. Heat the oven to 325°F.
2. Tear the bread into ½-inch pieces. Put it in a bowl, then douse and toss it with the brown butter. Let the bread soak for 1 minute.
3. Add the sugar, salt, and cinnamon to the bread and toss well. Spread the mixture on a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan and bake for 25 minutes.
4. Pull the sheet pan slightly out of the oven and, using a spatula, a spoon, or whatever you’ve got, break up the cinnamon toast crunch a bit and toss it around, to make sure it is caramelizing and drying out. Bake for an additional 5 minutes or more, until you have dry, caramelized clusters.
5. Cool the cinnamon toast crunch completely before storing or using in a recipe. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, it will keep fresh for 1 week; in the fridge or freezer, it will keep for 1 month.
cornflake-chocolate-chip-marshmallow cookies
MAKES 15 TO 20 COOKIES
I am neither brave nor bold enough to make just a chocolate chip cookie. Everyone’s mom or grandma makes “the best” chocolate chip cookie. And every one of those chocolate chip cookie recipes is different. So, out of respect, we dared not compete. Instead, we made a delicious chocolate chip tribute cookie—one of our most popular cookies—by accident.
In the Ko basement one day, Mar overtoasted the cornflake crunch for the cereal milk panna cotta. She was pissed. I was pissed. But we refused to let it go to waste. I was already well versed in making a cookie out of anything left in the pantry, and we needed a dessert for family meal anyway. So we made cookies with the cornflake crunch, and we threw in some mini chocolate chips, just to make them appealing to the cooks in case the overtoasted cornflakes were a bust, and some mini marshmallows, because we were eating them as a snack, and why the hell not. It was just family meal.
The cooks freaked. They requested the cookies for family meal every day after that. And so the cornflake-chocolate-chip-marshmallow cookie was born—love at first bite and a shoo-in on Milk Bar’s opening menu.
225 g butter, at room temperature
[16 tablespoons (2 sticks)]
250 g granulated sugar
[1¼ cups]
150 g light brown sugar
[¼ cup tightly packed]
1 egg
2 g vanilla extract
[½ teaspoon]
240 g flour
[1½ cups]
2 g baking powder
[½ teaspoon]
1.5 g baking soda
[¼ teaspoon]
5 g kosher salt
[1¼ teaspoons]
¾ recipe Cornflake Crunch
[270 g (3 cups)]
125 g mini chocolate chips
[¼ cup]
65 g mini marshmallows
[1¼ cups]
1. Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla, and beat for 7 to 8 minutes. (See notes on this process.)
2. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. (Do not walk away from the machine during this step, or you will risk overmixing the dough.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3. Still on low speed, paddle in the cornflake crunch and mini chocolate chips just until they’re incorporated, no more than 30 to 45 seconds. Paddle in the mini marshmallows just until incorporated.
4. Using a 2¾-ounce ice cream scoop (or a ⅓-cup measure), portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature—they will not hold their shape.
5. Heat the oven to 375°F.
6. Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pans. Bake for 18 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. At the 18-minute mark, the cookies should be browned on the edges and just beginning to brown toward the center. Leave them in the oven for an additional minute or so if they aren’t and they still seem pale and doughy on the surface.
7. Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pans before transferring to a plate or to an airtight container for storage. At room temperature, the cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.
holiday cookies
MAKES 18 TO 22 COOKIES
We’re awfully fond of celebrating the holidays with annoying decorative knickknacks. Or, rather, my mother loves to buy annoying decorative knickknacks and send them to us, and we love to make it look like a holiday just threw up in our kitchen.
We like our cookies to celebrate the holidays too—that’s how we came up with our winter “holiday” cookie, a cornflake-marshmallow cookie with crushed candy canes in it.
200 g peppermints or candy canes
[40 peppermints or 18 candy canes]
Unwrap the candy and transfer it to a medium zip-top plastic bag. With the end of a rolling pin, break the candy up into medium to small pieces, at least one quarter in size, no smaller than a Nerd, being careful not to make candy powder. Follow the recipe for cornflake-chocolate-chip-marshmallow cookies, adding the candy pieces with the mini marshmallows.
fruity pebble marshmallow cookies
MAKES 12 TO 17 COOKIES
Follow the recipe for the cornflake-chocolate-chip-marshmallow cookies, substituting Fruity Pebble Crunch for the cornflake crunch and omitting the chocolate chips.
cereal milk™ ice cream pie
MAKES 1 (10-INCH) PIE; SERVES 8 TO 10
This was the template, the training-wheels version, for many tasty and elaborate frozen pies that came after it. It’s also the easiest, most crowd-pleasing dessert you can make in a jiffy with some cornflakes and mother recipes you have on hand in your kitchen. Decorate the pie with any fruit you like to put in your breakfast cereal (bananas! strawberries! blueberries!).
½ recipe Cornflake Crunch
[180 g (2 cups)]
25 g butter, melted
[
2 tablespoons]
1 recipe Cereal Milk Ice Cream
1. Using your hands (or a food processor if you prefer), crumble the cornflake crunch clusters to half their size. (The smaller size will make for better distribution of the moisture and fat, creating a nice crunchy crust.)
2. Toss the melted butter into the crumbled cornflake crunch, mixing well. Using your fingers and the palms of your hands, press the mixture firmly into a 10-inch pie tin, making sure the bottom and sides of the pie tin are evenly covered. Wrapped in plastic, the crust can be frozen for up to 2 weeks.
3. Use a spatula to spread the ice cream into the pie shell. Freeze the pie for at least 3 hours, or until the ice cream is frozen hard enough so the pie is easy to cut and serve. Wrapped in plastic wrap, the pie will keep for 2 weeks in the freezer.
pretzel ice cream pie
MAKES 1 (10-INCH) PIE; SERVES 8 TO 10
A deeper, darker, saltier version of the cereal milk ice cream pie—try this one for the salty but sweet fans.