0 Compost Cookie Bars

I didn't visit the much talked about Momofuku Milk Bar the last time I was in New York City. I did eat at Momofuku Noodle Bar where I indulged in a bowl of their famous ramen and those amazing pork belly buns, but never made it to Milk Bar. Milk Bar is best known for their crack pie and their compost cookies. The compost cookie recipe has been floating around the internet ever since Christina Tosi, Milk Bar's pastry chef, appeared on Live with Regis and Kelly.

In the past the cookie probably would've been called a kitchen sink cookie (as in a cookie with everything but the kitchen sink thrown into it), but in this very environmentally conscious day and age, compost cookie sounds much more trendy. I think what really makes it a compost cookie is the addition of used coffee grounds. Yup, used grounds. I've read that others who have tried the compost cookie recipe thought the coffee grounds didn't really add much to the cookie, but I whole-heartedly disagree. Even though my grounds were used (and therefore much of the "coffee-ness" was already extracted) I could still taste the coffee in my cookie. Maybe it depends on the freshness and type of coffee beans used and how long the used grounds have been sitting after extraction? My used grounds were from locally roasted Blue Bottle beans ground right before making my pour over coffee and the used grounds had only been sitting around for a couple hours. I loved the flecks of coffee throughout the cookie. Of course you don't have to use used coffee grounds. Adding some unused ground coffee would work too (but it would be less compost-y).



The recipe calls for refrigerating the cookie dough for at least one hour before baking to prevent the cookies from spreading too much. I was crunched for time so I skipped the chilling and just spread the just made dough into a baking pan to make cookie bars. After spreading the dough in the pan I gave it a nice sprinkling of Maldon sea salt to play up the salty sweet nature of my cookie bar.

You can use any combination of add-ins and snack foods like chocolate chunks, butterscotch, nuts, dried fruits, candies (like chopped up peanut butter cups, Snickers, Rollos), breakfast cereal, salted pretzels, salted potato chips, oatmeal. I went with 60% cacao chocolate chips, Rice Krispies cereal, crushed salted pretzels and sliced almonds. Use whatever you like - sky's the limit!


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