When I hear somebody mention Minnie's Bakeshop Cookies, my mind fills with a thousand memories from Walt Disney World.  I think of the Pop Century food court, walking past racks stuffed with these massive cookies, resisting the urge to grab a package or two.  I remember the horror of realizing I had leftover snack credits at The Polynesian Village and grabbing an armload of these red and white packaged cookies to take home.  I remember coming home after an adults-only trip and handing out packages to the kids and hearing the sound of the plastic crinkling and crunching as they held their baked treasures like gold with huge smiles.  Believe it or not, I actually have a cookie that I "forgot" about in the luggage, that had just expired and wasn't edible...  So I put it with my Disney memorabilia.  Yes, I have a hockey puck-like wrapped cookie that expired in 2011 displayed right next to Mickey ears in my bedroom.

And it'll probably make more than a couple of people laugh when they hear that despite all the memories I have of these monstrous, quarter pound cookies, and how completely tied to Disney they are in my mind, I think I've eaten only one.  What can I say? I'm not really a cookie person.

I'm sorry if I'm ruining anybody's illusion but these cookies, despite the name, aren't actually made by Minnie.  They're not even made on-site.  They're bought in by a company called Selma's Cookes, Selma also providing baked goods to everybody from Barnes and Noble and BAM to Gloria Jean's Coffee.  In fact, my son's first cookie ever was a Selma's Cookie...  A Snickerdoodle bought at Borders Books.  Anyway, they have a ton of flavors, everything from Chocolate Supreme (which has like 4 different types of chocolate chips), Oatmeal Raisin, and occasionally even an M&M one can be found out and about in Disney World.  And lucky for us, they were nice enough to make available a recipe for their "mix-in" cookies (the cookies they add things to) as well as their Snickerdoodles.  The recipe I'm sharing is their at-home version of their popular Raspberry White Chocolate Cookies. 

Yes, that does taste as amazing as it sounds.

While these cookies aren't hard to make, they do require a lot more babysitting and knowledge of how your oven works in order for them to turn out correctly.  For example, the recipe calls for 2 minutes at 400 degrees, 15 at 350...  Well, my oven (which is older than my kitchen...  Not even joking) can't do that.  It hits 400, it's going to stay at 400.  After a first batch that was far-from-perfect, I figured out that what worked best for my oven was 4 minutes at 400, 10-12 minutes between 325 and 350.  So as I said, prepare to watch the first batch or two like a hawk to make sure it cooks right.

Now...  Size...  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup raw dough per cookie.  Well, I did that, I got

hubcap sized cookies.  When I aimed for a happy medium of between 1/4 and 1/3 cup dough per cookie, I got a cookie more about the size of what Minnie ships out from her oven.  The key is to make sure they're really mounded, appropriately chilled, and you'll get a big, thick cookie.

The fun thing about these cookies is, fresh out of the oven, they're these soft, velvety, gooey cookies with the texture of butter.  They almost melt in your mouth the second they hit your tongue.  While pretty much the best tasting cookies of all time, they were definitely more chewy than the Minnie's Bakeshop version.  However, after being left to cool overnight (wrapped, of course), these cookies became a dead ringer for Minnie's Bakeshop Cookies.  Dense, not too chewy and not too crunchy, with a little bit of crumble, while still keeping the soft texture.  Personally, I like my cookies with crunch so I know this is sacrilegious to say, but I think these cookies are best enjoyed completely cooled.  For anybody who has the patience to wait that long, I promise...  You'll end up with a cookie so close to the in-park version of the cookie, you'll have family members digging through the trash to try and find the Minnie's Bakeshop wrappers. 

I did make two changes to this recipe, aside from the baking time and size notes above.  Because I live in rural NH and apparently white chocolate chunk chips are completely foreign to our grocery stores, I did substitute the white chocolate chunks for white chocolate chips.  Frankly, I prefer chunks but what are you going to do.  Secondly, I used seedless raspberry preserves.  I know that's what the recipe calls for below, however, that's not what Selma's uses.  Their swirl is something proprietary (for those who don't watch "Shark Tank" that is a fancy word for "it's a secret"), so the raspberry preserves is the suggested replacement.  Try to stick with seedless and if you use jam, be prepared to tweak the amount a bit.  You want enough of a swirl that you can taste the raspberry, but not so much it makes your cookies watery.  A lot of knowing how much to add has to do with how the dough looks since he portion is done by ounces.  Just make sure that you add and swirl enough that you can see the swirl, but not so much that the dough isn't firm and could be rolled into a sticky ball.  It shouldn't be crumbly, watery, or liquid.  Be aware...  These cookies can get pretty sticky, even after they're baked.  But as we all know, the messier the cookie, the better.

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Minnie's Bakeshop Cookies - Raspberry White Chocolate

As is found at Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and associated resort hotels and gift shops

 

°o°  1 cup butter, room temperature, sliced by tablespoon (to aid in mixing)
°o°  1 cup light brown sugar, packed

°o°  3/4 cup confectioner sugar (this cannot be substituted for granulated sugar)

°o°  1 egg

°o°  1 tablespoon water

°o°  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

°o°  1 teaspoon raspberry extract

°o°  2 3/4 cups flour (up to 3 cups if consistency is still to wet)

°o°  1 teaspoon salt
°o°  1/2 teaspoon baking powder

°o°  1 cup white chocolate chunks

°o°  1 cup raspberry flavored chocolate baking chips, semi-sweet (regular semi-sweet can be substituted)

°o°  10 ounces seedless raspberry preserves

 

Combine butter, sugars into large mixing bowl and beat until creamy.  Add egg, water, and extracts.  Continue to cream until all of the liquid is absorbed into the dough.  Slowly add flour, 1/2 cup at a time.  If, after 2 3/4 cups of flour, dough is still too soft to handle, add up to 1/4 cup additional flour.  Dough should be very dense and stiff, but not dry or crumbly.  Add white and chocolate chips, mixing to distribute evenly in the dough.  Divide dough into 4 batches.

Working with one batch of dough at a time (refrigerating the dough not being worked with) add about 2 ounces of raspberry preserves to the dough and cut the preserves into the dough to create a swirl.  Do not mix the dough or the swirl effect will not be achieved and cookies will turn pink.  Using a measuring cup or ice cream scoop, scoop dough into balls and place on a plate.  Put cookies in freezer and freeze for 15-25 minutes.  This will allow the cookies to bake without spreading.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

After 15-25 minutes in the freezer, place cookies on a parchment or foil-lined baking sheet (if using foil, grease pan generously).  Bake cookies at 400 degrees for 2 minutes.  After two minutes, lower temperature to 350 and bake for 14-17 minutes or until done.  Remove cookies from oven, allow to cool on pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool for another 15-30 minutes.

Repeat process with remaining portions of dough.

Makes between 12-14 cookies.

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Today's recipe is something of a milestone...  Believe it or not, this is,  hands down, without a doubt the recipe I get the most requests for.  Seriously.  More than Dole Whips, Le Cellier Soup, and The Grey Stuff combined.  Literally, there was a point where I was getting a request for the recipe to these simple little cookies once or twice a week.  Even as I type this, I check my inbox on Facebook to see not one, but two more requests from fans for these cookies  I can't explain it

I'll admit, for a period of time I thought these requests were from the same couple of people (most likely related to The Cookie Monster in some way) made over and over and over again, but a quick little search on Google shows that these bad boys are the center of many a recipe request online, from Yahoo! Answers to Facebook and Disney food-related websites.  For some reason, these little cookies have quite the cult following.

So why didn't I share the recipe before now?  Well, quite simply...  I didn't have it.  And despite all claims to the contrary, very few had what could be nailed down as the legitimate, one-and-only famous Disney Snickerdoodle recipe.  Again you may ask why...  The reasons, as best I could uncover anyway, was because for the longest time the cookies were not made by Disney.  They were brought in pre-made and pre-cooked (or pre-made but frozen for quick baking) from an outside vendor.  I know this is an earth-shattering revelation for many, but it's true.  Even at places where you could find them on a rack, safely tucked on wax paper behind the sparking glass of the bakery display case, the chances were high that sweet looking little cookie was made somewhere other than Minnie's on-site bake shop.

Then sometime in the last 10ish years, Disney switched back to making these on-site again

(in limited batches, available only in certain spots).  But when it came to handing out the recipe, there were still roadblocks to overcome.  The measurements they used were designed for batch sizes in the hundreds.  As one can imagine, condensing down a recipe that makes 500+ cookies to a more household chef-friendly batch of 24 presents specific challenges.

After developing a "sorry, I don't have the recipe for Disneyland's Snickerdoodles" form letter (again, not joking), I kind of gave up the idea of ever nailing down this treat.  Such is the way with many Disney baked goods...  The home chef version of the recipe was just not meant to be.

Then, a breakthrough.  I was looking for an email that I thought landed in my SPAM box and I just happened to find a message from Disney Guest Relations.  Inside, the practically perfect and ridiculously pleasant response by one of the fantastic folks at Disney, happily sharing Disneyland's Snickerdoodle recipe.  Um.... Whaaaat?  I didn't even remember sending the email that asked for the recipe.  I was stunned, but thrilled.  Oh and by the way, the email they replied to was sent 6/28/2012.  That's right, they replied to an email I sent two years ago asking for this recipe.  Am I the only one who thinks that's amazing?

After getting this recipe from Disney, a recipe people have been asking me about for years, an easy recipe with no exotic or expensive ingredients, a recipe that happens to be my son's favorite type of cookie, you'd think I dropped everything and rushed to make it.  Think again.  Actually, I sat on it for another two or three months before deciding to try it out today.  Because I'm just awesome like that.


I won't go into great detail about this because apparently everybody but me was on the "these are the most amazing cookies of all time" bandwagon well before me.  Needless to say, these cookies are pretty darn amazing, they're easy to make, and they're even easier to sit down and eat.  No real tricks to this, other than to make sure the butter is room temperature, not cold or melted.  Also, trust the timing on these...  The recipe says 8 minutes, but on my first batch, I was expecting something more browned so I left them in for 12 minutes.  They were good, but crunchy, and they never got browned like I thought they would.  The next batch I left in for exactly 8 minutes, and even though every fiber of my body screamed that they were underdone...  Actually, they were perfect.

And, I'm happy to say, this recipe allows me to use one of my few baking "tricks."  When it comes to rolling and then flattening these cookies, it's hard to get that perfect "smush," where the cookie's thickness is even, it's round, and there are no unsightly fingerprints on the dough (which also show up on the cookie after it's baked).  My solution?  Use the flat bottom of a glass or cup to smush the cookies.  I actually used one of those retro-style Coke fountain glasses from the dollar store.  I got perfectly smushed cookies every time.     

So, here it is, after years of waiting, multiple requests, and countless hours of research thwarted by Disney's reply to an email sent several years ago...  The recipe to the Disneyland Snickerdoodle. 

Now here's hoping all the people that requested this over the years don't stop reading the website because I granted their wish.  Maybe if I drop the bombshell that I have the Minnie's Bakery chocolate chip supreme recipe people will hang out for another couple of years until I decide to try that one out?

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Disneyland Snickerdoodles

As is served at Disneyland

 

°o°  2 sticks of butter

°o°  2 cups granulated sugar  

°o°  1/2 teaspoon salt  

°o°  2 eggs  

°o°  1/4 cup milk 

°o°  1 teaspoon vanilla 
°o°  3 1/2 cups flour
°o°  1/2 teaspoon baking soda

°o°  1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

For topping:
°o°  6 tablespoons granulated sugar 

°o°  1 tablespoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together using a blender butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, milk, and vanilla.  Mix very well so that all ingredients are incorporated and there is no standing liquid in the bowl.  

Combine flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and sift.  Add, about one cup at a time, to the wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition and scraping sides as needed.

Combine topping ingredients on a separate, small plate.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and then roll into the sugar and cinnamon mixture so all sides are covered with the sugar mixture.  Place on a greased baking sheet (or a sheet lined with parchment paper) and flatten into disks.  Sprinkle additional topping on the cookies.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 8 minutes, or until cooked through.   

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