My ice cream obsession has kept me away from chocolate chip cookie baking, but this recipe for Minnesota State Fair cookies appeared in my email and I couldn't resist. These are not the cookies that are most associated with the fair, Sweet Martha's, but rather blue winning ribbon cookies by Madeline, who entered the fair at the encouragement of her housemates.
Actual Minnesota State Fair Cookies Recipe
Here's a link to the original recipe that won the DeRusha's Best title. There's a picture of them in the linked article, and you can see they look different from mine. I didn't make any changes, but it's a good example of how things vary from kitchen to kitchen. Madeline might have used a more finely ground oat flour. I ground mine as fine as I could in the blender, but store bought oat flour will probably give you better cookies. There might also be difference in the butter, the flour, size of egg, but that's what makes baking so interesting. Two people can follow the same recipe and the results are hardly ever the same.
More Chocolate Chip Cookies Notes
So here's my interpretation of the Minnesota State Fair cookie. I used 100 grams of homemade oat flour, but next time I'll try with store bought. Also, medium eggs might work better than large , but it's hard to say. Just be sure that if you use unsalted butter you add at least a teaspoon of salt. Madeline noted she used salted, but then only used a small amount of salt.
Recipe
Minnesota State Fair Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 oz salted or unsalted butter (228 grams)
- 1 cup oat flour (100 grams)
- 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour*** (195 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt if using unsalted or ⅛ if using salted
- ¾ cup tightly packed light brown sugar (160 grams)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (90 grams)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs (medium should work too)
- 2 cups chocolate chips
Instructions
- Brown the butter using your favorite method for browning butter. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature and set. You can use the refrigerator to speed up the process, but don't let it get too firm.
- Whisk together the oat flour, flour, baking soda and salt.
- With an electric mixer, beat the cooled brown butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, stopping to scrape the bowl. Beat in the vanilla.
- Add the flour mixture and stir until blended, then stir in the chocolate chips.
- Using a medium cookie scoop or a generously rounded tablespoon measure, scoop dough into balls and arrange on a plate or cookie sheet lined with plastic wrap. Chill the dough balls for an hour or overnight or until ready to bake. Chilling the dough was not in the MSF recipe, but I think the cookies taste better when made with dough that's been chilled.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Have ready two ungreased baking sheets or if you prefer, line with parchment.
- Set the dough balls 2 ½ inches apart on sheets.
- Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, until they're golden brown.
Sue says
Follow up to yesterday’s comment. I baked a few today from dough that was chilled almost 24 hours. They’re still great. Pretty similar to yesterday but I did flatten the dough balls a little because the dough was so cold. I like these cookies and so does my husband.
Sue says
I finally made these! I’ve only baked two of the cookies but they were very good. I made them with ingredients I had on hand and it will be interesting to bake more tomorrow and see how they are after a longer chill time. After one hour of chill time they were quite good.
I was out of AP flour (how does this even happen!?) so I used bread flour. I used part dark brown and part light brown sugar, 1.25 tsp table salt and Bob’s Red Mill Oat Flour.
The flavor of the brown butter was distinct and very nice. I think the oat flour made the texture different in a good way but weirdly didn’t seem like it had a big impact on the flavor.
I think the cookies are very, very good. I’m glad I made them and will look forward to baking the rest of the dough.