Crack Pie (MMB)

Now if Momofuku in general is famous for its pork buns, Momofuku Milk Bar is perhaps even more famous for its Crack Pie merely because it's been lauded by celebrities as ubiquitous as Oprah Winfrey.
Somehow thus far I've never had any of MMB's pies before (cookies, cake truffles, soft-serve, flavored butter, savory breads, I've had all of these). After eating a slice of it this early afternoon and looking forward to eating it as dessert after my initial stab at fresh pasta, I'm not sure I'll be able to restrain myself from eating a slice in between.
I can honestly say that I've never smoked crack cocaine, but eating this pie is far more addictive than I ever allowed myself to believe it would be.

First we start with the components: Oat Cookie and Crack Pie Filling. I apologize if I neglected to take as many pictures this time.

The recipe from the actual MMB cookbook is far more finicky than the ones I viewed found from Bon Appetit or the LA Times. Hey, I understand if you don't want to spend money on the cookbook (Though if you've enjoyed all my entry about cookies and cakes, you really should.) or don't want to have to try to buy corn powder (I assumed that the Bob's Red Mills Corn Flour Harvest in JP was probably more or less the right thing). That and you don't want to bother the trademark step where you freeze the pie for 3 hours and defrost? What's so wrong with leaving that in the recipe you Media People?
Of course I'm using the list of ingredients from the official recipe.

Oat Cookie

• 115 g butter, at room temperature (8 tablespoons [1 stick])
• 75 g light brown sugar (1/3 cup tightly packed)
• 40 g granulated sugar (3 tablespoons)
• 1 egg yolk
• 80 g flour
• 120 g old-fashioned rolled oats (1 1/2 cup)
• 0.5 g baking powder (1/8 tablespoon)
• 0.25 g baking soda (pinch)
• 2 g kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)

Mise en place.
Using an awful lot less of everything than is called for in "traditional" Christina Tosi cookie recipes.


A good 80% of the cookie dough wound up collecting on my stand mixer paddle. Oat-Cookie goodness soon too be something measurably more devious.

Pam-ing up my quarter-sheet cake pan. First time baking with it since failing to get it spotlessly cleaning after roasting pork belly and shoulder in it for 8 hours total for ramen.
Failed to take a photo of the finished Oat Cookie though perhaps none of the pictures just satisfied me. There were several occasions later in this entry where I clearly knew I had simply forgot to document something. Or nearly failed to.

And now for the part where your jaw starts to hurt. "I can actually feel my teeth decaying," says Eric S. about my Crack Pie.

Crack Pie Filling

• 300 g granulated sugar (1 1/2 cups)
• 180 g light brown sugar (3/4 cup tightly packed)
• 20 g milk powder (1/4 cup)
• 24 g corn powder (1/4 cup)
• 6 g kosher salt (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 225 g butter, melted (16 tablespoons [2 sticks])
• 160 g heavy cream (3/4 cup)
• 2 g vanilla extract (1/2 teaspoon)
• 8 egg yolks

Separating out the yolks from the whites. Hey, it's okay that I effed up the white side since that isn't going into the menu, but try as I might you can see that there's still totally some white in the yolks dish even though Mama Tosi (I've never cooked this much repeatedly from an executive chef before) says: "It will be the death of your wildly dense pie if there is any bit of egg white in the mixture."
I separated them with my hands and all too! PLUS, my pie didn't fail.


Mise en place.


The finished component. Eventually I scoop some up with my fingertip and test it out; already I realize I'm in trouble.

Crack Pie
Blargh at the moment I feel as if Crack Pie won't just suddenly turn me diabetic over the course of the next few days, but the first slice I had was incredible. This major irresistible sugar rush.
Now I realize that I can stop eating it, but if I don't it'll go bad and then I'll have wasted Crack Pie!!!

• 1 recipe Oat Cookie
• 15 g light brown sugar (I tablespoon tightly packed)
• 1 g salt (1/4 teaspoon)
• 55 g butter, melted, or as needed (4 tablespoons [1/2 stick)
• 1 recipe Crack Pie Filling
• confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Oat Cookie as actual cookie but not for very long.


Whizzed up in the food processor. First time I've broken it out since moving to Forest Hills. First time I'm using the stand mixer since the start of my vacation and also the first time I've had to wash and dry it out completely and using it a multiple time in a recipe.


Combining enough melted butter to get the cookie to potentially form a crust.


Later I would wonder if I should've broken out the scale while splitting the two mixtures between 2 pie plates. Maybe I should have Pam-ed the pie plates as well.
Anyway, here I've finally managed to do a half decent job of pressing the crust into the plates.


Oh no, I had already had them popped in for a minute before I realized that I had failed to document their unbaked stage.


Ooh, baked stage. Now at least 3 hours and up to a month in the freezer to get the signature MMB texture (somehow this step missing from both Bon Appetit and the LA Times).



I've said enough about this already.