Mixed Review: Milk & Cookies Bakery Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Mix
Tina Casaceli has an impressive bio [pdf]. Not only is she the director of pastry and bread arts at the French Culinary Institute, she is also the owner of Milk & Cookies Bakery in New York City's West Village. Tucked away on Commerce Street, the adorable shop bakes up some of the best cookies in the city, including snickerdoodles, oatmeal scotchies, and chocolate mints. In addition, you can design your own dozen ($19) or dough-to-go ($9) from a variety of cookie bases and unusual mix-ins, like dried blueberries and cappuccino chips.
Can't make it all the way to New York City to satisfy your sweet tooth? Not to worry. Tina has just released a line of Milk & Cookies baking mixes, available at Whole Foods for $6.99. I tried out the oatmeal raisin version for this week's Mixed Review.
Just like the bakery cookies, the Milk & Cookies mix is made from all-natural ingredients: oats, wheat flour, brown sugar, and a healthy dose of cinnamon. All I had to add was a stick of butter and an egg. The directions are concise—there's no indication of what type of mixer to use—but I found the best method was to beat the butter and egg together with an electric mixer, and then stir in the dry mix with a wooden spoon.
While the package suggests dropping "scoops" of dough onto a baking sheet to yield a dozen huge cookies, I elected to use heaping tablespoons. I ended up with 21 normal-sized cookies, each about 3 inches in diameter. After a quick 10 minutes in a 350°F oven, my cookies emerged absolutely gorgeous. Each one was crisp at the edges, had plump raisins peeking through the dough, and a golden-brown bottom.
The first warm bite was even better. The cookies were the perfect combination of crunchy and soft. The raisins were juicy and plentiful, and added a burst of chewy sweetness to each mouthful. Both the brown sugar and the cinnamon were perfectly rationed, lending enormous flavor without overpowering the nuttiness of the oats.
These cookies are as good as any I've ever made from scratch. I would highly recommend the Milk & Cookies mix for when you’re short on time yet still want sensational, "secret-recipe" flavor.
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3 Comments:
These look cute, but how short on time can you be that you can't measure out the oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and whole wheat flour to begin with?
Amy
Baking and Mistaking
cool2bars at 9:42AM on 04/17/09
My kids went crazy for these oatmeal raisin cookies-the best I have ever baked!
baking mom at 10:58AM on 04/17/09
i think where things like this come in hand are with people who don't do a lot of baking. i have large (at least, larger than i need or could use) quantities of random baking ingredients sitting on my shelves that, all together, cost me more than 6.99... and now they're just sitting there (they're from a pineapple upside down cake i made a while back). just pulling out a package when i randomly want/need to make a good batch of cookies and having the perfect amount of ingredients on hand (i always have butter and eggs), without having waste, is helpful to me...
hookrilla at 3:56PM on 04/17/09