Minnie's Bakeshop Cookies - Raspberry White Chocolate

 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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