I'm a long time Christina Tosi / Milk Bar fan. I've bought all her books and love her recipes, but the one I could never get right was the simplest. The Milk Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies. They just never turned out right. But hooray! I think I finally got it.
The problem with my earlier batches was they kept spreading too much and had rough brown edges, which is what you get with too much butter and too little flour. And then there was the milk powder issue. Was it really worth using?
Why Use Milk Powder in Cookies?
Milk powder makes cookies a little softer in the center, aids browning and adds flavor. Unfortunately the flavor of the milk powder wasn't great. Or at least not until I switched to Bob's Red Mill brand. I bought it for ice cream making and noticed how much better it tasted than other dry milk. It's also a little heavier, so if you are using a recipe that calls for milk powder by volume and doesn't give a weight, you may need less of Bob's. So the new milk powder inspired me to return to this recipe.
Softened Plugra Butter
Another thing I discovered was Plugra butter works really well. I wasn't sure how it would go since the cookies are already so butter heavy, but the milk powder cookies taste better with the Plugra and so far, haven't spread too much. It's also important to soften it right. Melting causes more spread. The butter needs to be soft and squishy, just not melted. You don't have to use Plugra, any good butter is fine, but it did work well
Gold Medal Bleached Flour vs. King Arthur
I go back and forth between bleached and unbleached depending on my mood so I'm always testing just to see how much a cup weighs. As of late, flour weights have been very inconsistent. This morning I scooped a cup of King Arthur unbleached all-purpose and it weighed 146 grams. I then carefully scooped a cup of Gold Medal bleached and it came in at around 125 grams. So the point is with my bleached Gold Medal, I needed a little more than 1 ¾ cup to hit the target weight of 245 grams. So if your cookies are coming out thin, you may need to weigh your flour or increase the volume by a couple of tablespoons.
Milky Macadamia Chocolate Chunk Cookies
I loved the Milk Bar chocolate chip cookies, but I've also been on a milk chocolate chunk kick so I made a batch of jumbo size ones loaded with walnuts, macadamias and chopped milk chocolate. They were so good! I used a lot of barely chopped walnut halves and 8 oz of chunks chopped from a Trader Joe's Pound Plus bar. Same dough, different add-ins. They almost look like completely different cookies, but it's from the same recipe. Update: Guittard brand milk chocolate chips are also great.
Recipe
Milk Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies with Milk Powder
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (245 grams)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ¼ teaspoon Diamond Crystals or ¾ teaspoon Morton kosher
- 2 tablespoons milk powder (Bob's Red Mill) (16 grams)
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, carefully softened so that it's squishy (228 grams)
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, fresh and soft (150 grams)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100 grams)
- 1 large egg (50 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 12 oz semisweet or milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together until evenly blended, then set aside.
- Put the softened butter and both sugars in the stand mixer bowl and use the paddle attachment to beat just until creamy. Alternatively, you can do this with a big scraper or a wooden spoon.
- Add the milk powder and stir with the paddle (or your spoon) until blended, then add the egg and vanilla and stir just fully blended. The goal is to just mix everything without dissolving the sugar or whipping in a lot of air. This helps cookies spread less.
- Add the flour mixture and stir until it's mixed in, scraping the sides of the bowl and pushing the dough together. Add the chocolate chips.
- Using a medium size cookie scoop (about 1 ½ tablespoons), scoop up balls of dough. Chill the dough balls while the oven preheats.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 10-12 minutes for medium size scoop cookies
- Let cookies cool on the sheet for about 10-15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Sue K says
These are really great cookies! I’m so glad I finally got around to making them! Thanks Anna!
Anna says
I sometimes brown milk powder in butter when I'm browning butter, but I haven't had much success dry toasting. It's something I need to try again.
Darlene says
Anna, have you tried toasting your milk powder? I heard Edd Kimber (theboywhobakes) talk about it on Instagram. It makes perfect sense to toast milk powder to get the same flavor you get from the milk solids when you brown butter. Edd says toasted milk powder will keep in an airtight container for 1 year. I'd also love to try that!
Anna says
Darlene, let us know how it goes. The recipe has a ton of butter so you have to make sure there's enough flour to balance it out. The other key is not overmixing, so just make it by hand or use the lowest speed on your mixer. I've not yet tried adding milk powder to molasses type cookies but that seems like a great idea.
Darlene says
I'm so happy you mentioned which milk powder you prefer! I saw Christina Tosi bake Frosted Gingersnaps on LIVE with Kelly and Mark, and she said to add 2 tablespoons of milk powder to any cookie recipe to make it better. I haven't tried it yet, so I think I'll make this recipe with all your suggestions (as soon as I have a chance). Thanks, Anna!
Anna says
Good luck! You can do it! Maybe make some bread or something 🙂
Sue K says
Your cookies look and sound so good! Great job figuring out how to make that recipe work to your satisfaction!
I will try this someday with your recommendations. Right now I’m in the midst of one of those 30 day no added sugar challenges.