Momofuku Milk Bar’s signature Corn Flake Marshmallow Cookies are a perfect reminder of what Saturday mornings were like as a kid.
Remember the good old days of Saturday morning cartoons? At home in your pj’s, no school, watching the Gummi Bears, Ghostbusters, and Saved By The Bell, while eating your favourite cereal. Those were the BEST. Did you know that Saturday morning cartoons don’t exist anymore?? So sad! I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I see those “After These Messages” bumpers. Ahh, memories…
So these cookies are actually Momofuku Milk Bar’s signature Cornflake Marshmallow cookies, but I wanted a snazzier name. When my friend Nicole saw these cookies on Facebook, she said “This is like a Saturday morning cartoon and campfire sing-along all rolled into one.” Perfect!
As with any new recipe, I seem to do a ton of research. I don’t like to fail, so I spend an obscene amount of time looking up recipes and reading blogs about how said recipes went. While I usually overdo it, this time it paid off, as a lot of people had issues with these cookies. I didn’t really understand why at first. I mean, they’re cookies, how hard can they be? Let’s just say any thoughts I had of modifying an ingredient or a step here or there went quickly out the window when I read through people’s struggles. I think this may be the first time I followed a recipe to a T, took my time, and even properly weighed out all the ingredients in advance.
One of they key things I learned in school was Mise En Place, or Everything In Its Place. Meaning you get yourself organized, gather all the tools, and measure out the ingredients that you’ll need to make a recipe before actually starting. Admittedly, I’m not good at that. I’m a multi-tasker. I look ahead in recipes to see what the steps are, and then combine or jump ahead when I can. Like placing the butter and sugar directly into the mixer bowl, or placing all the dry ingredients into the same bowl all at once rather than everything in its own tiny dish. I also don’t want to have to clean 50 tiny dishes at the end…
With these cookies I did just that, and measured everything out into its own dish before starting. Okay, I’m kind of lying, I actually still just put all the dry ingredients together into one bowl, but everything else was weighed and ready to go in its own little dish. Granted, this may only be due to the fact that I had time to kill while the Cornflake Crunch was baking, but still…
These cookies aren’t terribly involved. You have to make the Cornflake Crunch first, but after that it’s a pretty standard cookie recipe. However, these cookies have a much higher butter content than normal cookies and, as such, you need to follow the creaming times precisely and chill your dough before baking. You need to cream the butter and sugars for a total of 10 minutes before adding the dry ingredients. Crazy, right?? This helps ensure your cookies won’t be a puddle of mess when baked. Don’t skip this step!
Those are the key things I learned form my research. Also that the baking temp and time was too high in the original recipe. The original recipe calls for a baking time of 18mins at 375F, but I did 12mins at 350F which seemed to be the recommendation from other bloggers. That’s the ONE thing I modified, but you can bet I was watching those cookies bake through the oven door like a hawk.
I also froze the portioned cookie balls for 30mins (rather than refrigerating for at least an hour) as per Christina Tosi’s instructions here with Martha. You can see the detailed steps in the recipe below.
Not all of the cookies baked up well. Some of them had weird pools of butter/caramel along certain edges and totally flattened out. Naturally, I didn’t take a picture of the duds (sorry!) but you can Google and see what I’m talking about. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad, and they were all salvageable. I just trimmed these edges off and they were perfect.
These cookies bake up fairly thin and have a crunchy/chewy texture. Crunchy exterior, chewy insides. They are really good and very buttery. Next time I would probably cut back on the Cornflake Crunch, as I found it almost too prominent, and I’d add more marshmallows to increase the gooeyness factor.
Saturday Morning Marshmallow Cookies
Ingredients
Cornflake Crunch
- 170 g cornflakes 1/2 12oz box or 5 cups
- 40 g milk powder 1/2 cup
- 40 g granulated sugar 3 tbs
- 4 g kosher salt 1 tsp
- 130 g unsalted butter 9 tbs, melted
Cookies
- 225 g unsalted butter 16 tbs, at room temperature
- 250 g granulated sugar 1 1/4 cups
- 150 g light brown sugar 2?3 cup tightly packed
- 1 large egg
- 2 g vanilla extract 1/2 tsp
- 240 g all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups
- 2 g baking powder 1/2 tsp
- 1.5 g baking soda 1/2 tsp
- 5 g kosher salt 1 1/2 teaspoons
- 270 g cornflake crunch 3 cups
- 125 g mini chocolate chips 2?3 cup
- 65 g mini marshmallows 1 1/4 cups
Instructions
Cornflake Crunch
- Preheat the oven to 275°F.
- Place cornflakes in a bowl and crush with your hands until they are 1/4 of their original size.
- Add milk powder, sugar, and salt. Toss to mix. Add melted butter and toss to coat.
- Spread cornflakes on a silpat or parchment lined sheet pan (I used 2 half-sheet pans).
- Bake for 20mins or until they are toasted and smell buttery.
- Cool completely before adding to recipe.
- Measure out 3 cups of cornflake crunch and set aside.
Cookies
- Place butter and sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on med-high for 2-3mins.
- Scrape bowl and add the egg and vanilla. Beat on med-high for 7-8mins (DO NOT skimp on the mixing time, do the full 7-8 mins).
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Reduce mixer to low and add in dry ingredients. Mix just until dough comes together, 30-45 secs. DO NOT overmix.
- Add cornflake crunch and chocolate chips and mix until just incorporated.
- Add marshmallows and mix until just incorporated.
- Using a large ice cream scoop (2 3/4oz, 1/3cup), portion the dough onto a parchment lined sheet pan. You can place them quite close together for this phase. (I used a med cookie scoop because that’s what I had).
- Press down on the tops of each ball to flatten a bit, so they look more like hockey pucks.
- Wrap sheet pan in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1hr (or freeze for 30mins).
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Place cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet at least 4″ apart. I did 5 cookies per half sheet pan and baked one pan at a time. Bake for 12-15mins.
- Cookies will spread a lot and be very soft right out of the oven. Cool on sheet pan for 10mins then gently transfer each cookie to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Do not bake cookies from room temperature, they will not turn out. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 1 week.
Bake cookies on parchment rather than silpat. Silpat can cause the cookies to spread too much.
The original recipe calls for baking the cookies at 375°F for 18mins. I (and many other bloggers) baked at 350°F for 12mins and they turned out perfect. https://milkbarstore.com/main/press/recipes-and-how-tos/#cornflake
brenda poplin says
Can the Saturday Morning marshmallow cookies be frozen after they are cooked?
Olivia says
Hi Brenda! For sure they should freeze fine.
Bea says
Can you tell me if the original recipe called for bread flour in the book like most of her cookies? Or did she actually recommend all purpose flour for these? I am making them today. Thank you in advance for your help.
Olivia says
Hi Bea! My book is currently in storage and I can’t easily dig it up. I don’t recall them calling for bread flour though.
Cathy says
The baking time is way to long.18 minutes for a cookie, and the cookies spread and almost disintegrate. At 10 minutes,mtgey were already spreading and were perfect.
Olivia says
I agree! Mine were done at 12 minutes, 18 would have been too long, especially at a higher temp too!
Chi @chicory says
I don’t know what problems you had with baking these bad boys, but your cookies look exactly like the ones they have at the store. This cookie is my favorite from Momofuku Milk Bar, alongside with their cereal milk soft serve. I’m totally addicted to that cornflakes crunch.
I love your blog and recipes, thus would like to invite you to become a Chicory Recipe Partner. Are you interested?
Nancy @ gottagetbaked says
I know how important mise en place is but I rarely do it because I’m lazy, I also don’t want to wash a million tiny dishes and most importantly, because I’m lazy 😉 Your research totally paid off – your cookies look fantastic! Christina Tosi’s momofuku recipes are amazing but they all have forty steps and components and my laziness prevents me from making them. I’m always in awe of people who successfully recreate her recipes. The next time you bake these, I’ll be more than happy to swing by and help you eat them!
Livforcake says
Haha, I will let you know for sure! This was my first momofuku recipe so I wanted to start off…easier? Hah. Next up is the “Birthday Cake” for Ryan’s birthday in May. I’m dying to try that one and praying it turns out!!