Blue-Razz Cookies

Inspired by my son’s favorite candy flavor: Blue Raspberry! No, wait! Stay with me!! While this is a recipe for adventurous cookie bakers, it’s a fun, fruity cookie, and just look at the color! It has an amazing chewy texture, stays soft and actually incorporates some real, freeze dried fruit, as well as, freeze dried candy…that I just had to experiment with. All ground to a powder. So fun.

I followed a recipe for ‘berry milk crumb’ from the “Momofuku Milk Bar” cookbook by Christina Tosi. In her book, Tosi explains how to incorporate layers of flavors and textures in cookies, cakes, bars…all of it. She's an absolute genius. And mixing and matching and adding twists becomes addicting while baking up new things. If you have a small coffee grinder, or mini food processor, they work great for making powder out of the freeze dried items. Also, if you have any small, helping hands, this is a great job for them!

For the Berry Crumb (can make ahead):

40 g (1/2 c) milk powder

40 g (1/4 c) flour

12 g (2 tbs) cornstarch

25 g (2 tbs sugar)

2 g (1/2 tsp) kosher salt

55 g (1/2 stick/ 4 tbs) melted butter

20 g (1/4 c) milk powder or malted milk powder

90 g (3 ou) melted white chocolate

2 oz bag freeze dried raspberries, ground to powder (I used Target's Good and Gather brand)

2 oz bag freeze dried blueberries, ground to powder

Cookie:

225 g (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

100 g (1/2) c) sugar

150 g (2/3 c) brown sugar

100 g (1/4 c) light corn syrup

2 large eggs, at room temperature

320 g (2 c) AP flour

2 g (1/2 tsp) baking powder

1.5 g (1/4 tsp) baking soda

2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Berry crumb (recipe above)

2.5 oz. bag of freeze dried skittle-type candy in wild berry (I used Arctic Farms Candy Frittles) ground to powder

1 tsp. Kosher salt (or to taste)

To prepare the crumb:

Preheat the oven to 250F and line a large sheet pan with parchment paper. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the 1/2 cup of milk powder, flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt. Add the melted butter and toss with a fork until clumps start to form. Spread the crumbs out on the sheet pan. Pinch together crumbs with your fingers to make little clusters. Not too big, not too small. Bake them for 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Dump the cooled crumbs back into the mixing bowl. Carefully break up any clumps that are too large. Add the 1/4 cup milk powder and toss around to combine. Melt the white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, stirring until fully melted and cooled slightly. Pour it in the bowl over the crumbs. Toss with the fork so that all of the crumbs are coated. Then add the raspberry powder and blueberry powder to the bowl and continue to gently mix so that everything is evenly distributed. Store the crumbs in the fridge, in a zip top bag, until ready to add to the cookie dough.

Prepare the cookie dough (allow time for chilling):

Cut the butter up into smaller chunks and add it to the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream for one minute, then add the sugars and corn syrup. Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl and the paddle. Add the eggs and turn the mixer up to medium- high speed. Beat mixture for 7-8 minutes. Stop and scrape everything down. Beat again for 30 seconds.

With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. I like to scatter the baking powder, soda and salt over the dough and mix for a few seconds and then add the flour and mix again. Mix until just combined. Do not over-mix. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and around the bottom. Turn the mixer on low speed and add the berry crumbs. Only mix for 30 seconds. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold by hand with a spatula just to make sure crumbs are evenly distributed.  Line a quarter sheet pan with parchment paper. Scoop out balls of cookie dough, rolling them in your hands to shape and place them on the sheet pan. They can be close together since this is just for the chilling process. You should get around 18 cookies. Tightly wrap the sheet with plastic and refrigerate for at least one hour, but preferably overnight. These should not be baked from room temperature.

Once dough has chilled, and you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F. Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper. Place the balls of cookie dough on the sheets, leaving a few inches in between and lightly pressing down on the tops of the cookies. They will bake up pretty large, so don’t overcrowd. Bake for 16 minutes and check them. They will puff up but settle as they cool. Take them out of the oven when the edges are firm and the center is still soft.  They can cool on the sheets. Then, dig in!