Okay, I’m not knocking those cute Keebler Elves. They make some fine cookies. I’m just saying that the range of flavors and textures in their products seem a bit…unadventurous. Ditto for most of the other major brands. Whether the cookies are crumbly crisp or soft-baked, with or without chocolate, layered with caramel, peanut butter and/or marshmallow, dotted with nuts and/or dried fruit, filled with jam (usually berry or apricot), sandwiched with some dense sugary “creme” filling tasting either vaguely vanilla, chocolate or artificially strawberry (the Neapolitan trifecta of flavors), it’s invariably the same selection at almost every American grocery chain–except perhaps Trader Joe’s, which likes to sneak in a limited exotic pick here and there just to keep you on your toes. Having grown up sampling a world of Asian snacks and cookies, I’m here to tell you there is so much more out there for your taste buds to explore! Time to break free from that Pepperidge Farms Milano bubble.
The best place to step outside your snack comfort zone is the cookie/snack/confection aisle at an Asian market. I touched on this subject in my last post about finding inspiration for my baking in the snack aisle. I’m not kidding when I say I can spend an hour just perusing the aisle(s) simply for the bounty of selection, a kaleidoscope of flavors, shapes, and textures–mini mushroom-shaped cookies dipped in chocolate, waffle cookies that resemble ice cream cones, an assortment of wafer bars stacked and layered with flavored creme filings like pineapple, mango, coconut, and durian (and yes, even vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry), chewy blocks of fried puffy egg pastry bound in a sticky honey sugar glaze, sprinkled with sesame seeds, soft pancake-like cookies sandwiched with red bean paste, and more sweet iterations of matcha green tea than you can imagine.
Sure one could say some of these flavors and textures are an acquired taste, but how would you ever acquire a taste for them if you don’t give them a try? Alright, having tried Durian-flavored snacks, which range from mild to “oh my God, what the hell IS that smell,” I can admit that I’ll probably never acquire a taste for Durian. For those unfamiliar with this infamously odoriferous tropical fruit originating from Southeast Asia, it looks like a giant greenish brown spiky pod. The sweet inside flesh is a velvety softy, creamy yellow. Some people find the fruit’s “fragrance” pleasant, though I’m one of many who think it smells like a noxious combination of stinky feet and rotten onions, with a whiff of raw sewage. Like celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern, I just can’t get past the smell to appreciate the fruit. Sorry Dad.
Oftentimes a snack or confection is the flavor gateway to another culture. After all, it’s easier to commit to trying a cookie or candy than it is, to say, a dish…and cheaper. There’s no better example of this than a Japanese Kit Kat bar. The Japanese are the masters at taking a popular Western food and customizing it to suit Asian tastes. In the case of the Kit Kat bar, they’ve basically turned the original on its ear and sparked a global demand for non-traditional flavors (in other words anything besides milk, dark, and white chocolate), like matcha, passionfruit, sakura & roasted soy bean, pickle plum, chestnut, etc. Although it’s undoubtedly harder to find other flavors outside of matcha, strawberry, or even melon at your typical Asian market in the US, there are plenty of online sources like Etsy to procure the more specialized flavors.
I was gifted a few samples of these, brought back from Japan by my brother and sister-in-law a couple of years ago, which included goji berry, azuki bean, and wasabi.
Another fun snack I got to try was a rather fancy looking limited edition regional flavor of Pocky–the iconic dipped biscuit sticks found in just about every Asian market. Packaged individually as a sleek, thin biscuit wand, the Yubari Melon-flavored coating blew me away. Both the aroma and melon flavor were spot-on. I could’ve sworn I was tasting the most fragrant, floral, super ripe heirloom cantaloupe. I’d never been a Pocky connoisseur so this came as a shocking delight and had me marveling at not only the level of sophistication but the pure artistry that went into producing such a deceptively simple, yet far from ordinary snack. Like Japanese Kit Kat, the Pocky brand takes flavors to the next level, embracing seasonal as well as regional specialties like Uji Matcha from Kyoto and Shinshu Grape from Nagano, which, let’s face it, put our ubiquitous pumpkin spice, gingerbread, eggnog, and peppermint holiday flavors to shame.
It’s no wonder why a trip down the snack/cookie aisle of an Asian market, particularly a large well-stocked one like H Mart, 99 Ranch or Mitsuwa, sparks so much enthusiasm and joy in me. The thrill of finding a hitherto undiscovered flavor combination or limited edition treat turns me into a giddy six year old set loose in a candy store. The possibilities and varieties are seemingly endless. I’m not ashamed to say I happily succumb to impulse buying, something I rarely do in regular grocery stores, except perhaps once in a while at Trader Joe’s. Okay, I’m a sucker for their seasonal Stuffing Seasoned Kettle Chips.
While I’m not nearly ambitious enough to attempt to replicate a Japanese Kit Kat flavor (wayyyyy too many components), I am game for creating my own version of “artisan” Pocky. Recipes for homemade pockies appear all over the internet, highlighting popular Pocky flavors like strawberry, chocolate, and cookies & creme–from NYT Cooking to Bon Appetit. Claire Saffitz tried her hand at reproducing a few classic flavors on her now defunct fan favorite video series Gourmet Makes. Hard to believe she’d never tasted a Pocky, much less was aware of its status in the snack world before this challenge.
Unlike Claire, I wasn’t particularly interested in precisely recreating the texture of Pocky—certainly not down to the grill marks. I’m not that anal. Instead, I was happy to create a deliciously snappy biscuit stick (sans yeast). Plus, I wanted to take a slightly different, more “thematic” approach–something I could feature at the next bake sale in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. What I decided on was a collection of three “boba tea shop”-inspired flavors–Milk Tea, Roasted Brown Rice Latte, and Strawberry Matcha Latte (a la The Boba Guys).
Coming up with biscuit dough to produce sticks that baked up with the appropriate snap was easy. It came down to using bread flour, which has a higher protein content than all-purpose, to give the biscuit more structural integrity.
Getting the flavors right took a bit more tinkering. You see, infusing the white chocolate coating base with enough true flavor is tricky because whatever you use has to be 100% oil-based or a fine dry powder, otherwise the chocolate will seize up and turn unpleasantly gloopy. At first, I thought I could simply warm up some refined coconut oil, which is essential for thinning out the chocolate to the perfect consistency for smooth dipping, and infuse it with crushed tea leaves. Nope, that didn’t work. The oolong tea flavor just didn’t come through strong enough against the white chocolate, so I ended up also adding instant milk tea powder to the melted chocolate and finished the surface with a light dusting of finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves to enhance the tea flavor and overall appearance.
Fortunately, the roasted brown rice tea or hojicha packed more of a flavor punch so a simple infusion worked just fine, with all the fragrant, toasty, nutty notes shining through. For texture I garnished the sticks with grains of roasted rice.
While matcha was arguably the easiest flavor to infuse, I hesitated because it seemed a somewhat commonplace flavor, until I remembered a signature drink made famous by The Boba Guys–a striking concoction with distant layers of fresh strawberry sauce, milk, and vibrant green matcha floating on top.
For my interpretation of their Strawberry Matcha Latte in Pocky form, I coated a band of white chocolate on the biscuit, then dipped the remaining 3/4 in matcha coating and garnished it with flecks of freeze-dried strawberries. My taste testers gave the Tea Shop Pocky Collection a thumbs up.
I had one more Asian cookie aisle-inspired creation up my sleeve…and it all began with a failed attempt to reproduce White Rabbit Candy. White Rabbit Candy is another iconic Asian confection that’s been around for decades…and one could argue the original gateway candy.
A product of China, this rice paper wrapped creamy chewy milk candy with an almost Tootsie Roll-like texture (when fresh) is the O.G., the one most commonly available at a grocery store, found usually in the “Asian” or “Ethnic Foods” aisle. The challenge is getting your hands on a fresh package of White Rabbit. It’s really a crapshoot and the odds have not been in my favor. I don’t buy them very often because I’d estimate only one out of eight packages have been pleasantly soft and chewy. Consequently, this led me to research recipes for making the candy at home.
I found plenty of recipes utilizing White Rabbit as an ingredient in beverages and desserts–from cheesecake to ice cream–but few for the candy itself, so when I finally found one I gave it a go. The recipe required few ingredients, mainly sugar, milk, and cream, boiled to a consistency thicker than that of sweetened condensed milk. Rather than pouring the cooked mixture into a lined and greased square pan as instructed, I opted to pour it into tiny silicone sugar cube molds saving myself the trouble of cutting the set candy into bite- size pieces later. The chilled candy never did set up to the firmness of even “fresh” White Rabbit, but rather a soft truffle texture–definitely not what I was hoping for. What was missing, I later discovered, were maltose and gelatin, two key ingredients in real White Rabbit. In any case, there had to be something I could do with my less than legit candy…maybe a filling?
This line of thinking had me brainstorming cookie options. I wanted textural contrast, visual appeal, perhaps something reminiscent of a childhood favorite. I remembered when I was a kid a relative (or perhaps a family friend) brought back a lovely box of individually wrapped wafer sandwich cookies (the Neapolitan assortment) from Japan. They were not too sweet (the ultimate Asian compliment for any dessert) and possessed the most delightfully delicate, airy crumb. I distinctly remembered favoring the strawberry variety over the vanilla and chocolate. Returning (mentally that is) to the Asian cookie aisle for ideas, I decided on a thin crispy waffle disk, a cross between a Stroopwafel and a fortune cookie. Truth be told, I wasn’t inclined to painstakingly spread out thin batter by hand using a template, and besides, I still had my friend Maria’s pizzelle maker in my possession, so…
To achieve a crispy waffle texture that could stand up to the filling and remain crispy over time, I once again turned to bread flour, developing a firm batter that could be pressed out very thin inside a pizzelle maker and hold its shape. Using a round cutter, I trimmed off the excess waffle as soon as I lifted it off the pizzelle maker.
As luck would have it, my test batch of batter yielded just a little more than enough waffles to sandwich the amount of filling I’d made. I call that serendipity. I flavored my White Rabbit fail with tart freeze-dried strawberry powder to balance out its sweetness, transforming it into a strawberry milk filling.
Upon tasting my Strawberry Milk Waffle Crisp Cookies, my brother Sam commented that it didn’t really resemble anything like the Japanese version, which was true. But then again, I wasn’t aiming to recreate that particular cookie. Like the Pocky, it was merely an inspiration…and sometimes what springs forth can be even more gratifying.
I made a couple of adjustments to the Pocky recipe I found on Chopsticks Chronicles to arrive at the texture and flavor I wanted, specifically substituting bread flour for all-purpose and adding just a tiny bit more sugar. You can form your sticks to the degree of thickness you prefer. I chose to make mine a little thicker and sturdier so they can be packed inside a treats box, hopefully without breaking.
Homemade Pocky (adapted from Chopsticks Chronicles)
Yield: 50-60 sticks
- 150 g bread flour
- 1 1/2 T. granulated sugar
- pinch of sea salt
- 50 g unsalted butter, cut into tiny pieces
- 3 T. whole milk
- Place flour, sugar, and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine.
- Add the butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs, then drizzle in milk and continue pulsing until dough comes together.
- Transfer the dough on a sheet of cling film, flatten into a disk, the wrap and chill for at least 30 mins.
- Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle, about 5mm thickness. Square off the edges, then cut dough into 5mm wide strips.
- Carefully roll each strip to form sticks, then transfer onto parchment-lined sheet pans.
- Bake the sticks in a preheated 350F degree oven for about 15 mins. or until very lightly golden and set.
- Cool completely on a rack before dipping.
To make flavored coating chocolate, I suggest using either a mild flavored white chocolate chip or white candy melts. Add a pinch of sea salt to offset the sweetness of the coating chocolate. Once melted the white coating chocolate will be very thick so you’ll need to thin it out with some melted refined (unfiltered and neutral flavored) coconut oil, which you can infused with any flavor of your choosing so long as it is 100% oil-based or a dry powder (i.e. matcha tea powder), in order to achieve a smooth dip-able consistency.
Waffle Crisp Cookies
Yield: approximately 28 disks
- 2 extra large eggs
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1/8 t. sea salt
- 100 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/2 t. vanilla extract
- 150 g bread flour
- Beat the eggs, sugar, and salt until slightly thickened and aerated, then gradually beat in melted butter and vanilla.
- Mix in bread flour. If the batter seems too stiff or dough-like, stir in a teaspoon of water to loosen it up.
- Drop a scant (just under) tablespoon of batter onto the center of each lightly greased heated pizzelle mold and clamp down the press.
- As soon as the waffles are golden brown lift each one out and quickly trim off the excess with a round cutter (about 2 3/4″ – 3″ diameter).
- Transfer waffle disks onto a cooling rack.
Strawberry Milk Filling
Yield: about 1 cup
- 200 g heavy cream
- 200 g whole milk
- 35 g granulated sugar
- 1 T. maltose
- 1/8 t. sea salt
- 2 T. freeze-dried strawberry powder
- In a saucepan combine cream, milk, sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium low.
- Stirring constantly, cook the mixture until it is a consistency that’s thicker than sweetened condensed milk.
- Remove from the heat and stir in maltose, salt, and strawberry powder.
- Chill the mixture for about 1 hour or until thick enough to spread.