Lao Gan Ma Caramel Cookies

2024-07-29

Skip to the recipe section if you want to get baking and skip the backstory. This recipe is directly adapted from Eric Kim's gochujang caramel cookies, the only difference is the use of Lao Gan Ma (LGM) in the ingredients and some changes in the preparation.

Commentary and Notes

These cookies are extremely chewy and soft, and they stay that way even after a few days (albeit in a Ziploc bag). I feel like the cookies could have used a bit more gochujang flavour, maybe up the amount used, for next time. There's a ton of spreading in the oven, make sure to be generous with the space you put between each cookie on the baking sheets.

Recipe

Ingredients

You're going to need the following things in your pantry, which will yield about 8 large cookies (very thin). Please drain the lao gan ma when measuring it out; it's already quite oily, and what you really want is the pepper flakes and the peanuts; the butter in this recipe provides enough fat, already.

For the items marked room temp (i.e., egg, butter), it's helpful to take them out of the fridge and leave them on your counter overnight. You'll really want the butter to be at room temp in order for the "caramel" to really get nice and smooth and well-incorporated.

Prep

Step 1: Gochujang/LGM "Caramel"

Mix a tbsp (14.375g) of the butter, the dark brown sugar, and the gochujang/lao gan ma in a bowl until smooth. Set aside the bowl for later, at room temperature.

This isn't really a caramel since you're not directly heating sugar over a stove to create a sauce, but you'll mix it into the flour and bake it. So I guess you're indirectly caramelizing it? I'm not a baker.

Step 2: Flour Mixture

Mix together the remaining butter, granulated sugar, egg, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla until a smooth consistency is reached.

Then, sprinkle the baking soda over the mixture, and evenly fold it in. The baking soda is what'll allow the cookies to rise and deflate, creating the craggy, "tectonic plate"-like pattern across the top.

Finally, slowly fold in the flour into the mixture, and incorporate well. This is going to be a pretty goopy mixture, so set aside in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes (or however long it takes for your oven to pre-heat).

Step 3: Marrying the Caramel and Flour Mixture

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper (or whatever you use to line your sheets, or nothing, I'm not here to dictate terms), and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

The original NYT recipe says to mix the [gochujang] caramel into the flour mixture after it's been sitting in the fridge for 15-20 minutes, or however long it takes your oven to pre-heat. Some of the comments on the NYT recipe says it's hard to fold in the caramel after the dough gets cold, others say it's fine.

I think either: fold in the caramel before you put it in the fridge (not everyone's oven is going to pre-heat at the same rate, the dough might be at a different consistency for each person), or just wait until you've placed balls of dough onto the baking sheets and then add a dollop of gochujang to each ball of dough. I went with folding in the caramel before cooling the dough in the fridge, but I think the dollop approach is what I'll try next time.

Divide the dough into 8 more-or-less equal portions, and drop them evenly-spaced onto the baking sheets you lined earlier. These cookies will spread, so make sure you're leaving enough space between them. Bake at 350 for 10-13 minutes, rotate the pans halfway through. Take them out and let them cool for at least 10min. If you're impatient like me and try to eat one right as they come out, the cookie will fall apart.

Epilogue

I'm currently writing down this recipe from my friend Clayton's dining/living room table (and now, from Gate 80 at YVR). Vancouver real estate is obscene, and having a separate dining and living area is the exception rather than the norm. My flight back to New York, where I'm on an internship for the summer, leaves at 2pm today, and I spent the last few days back "home" (whatever that means, more on that in another blog post) for a friend's wedding.

I'm famously known for being pretty stubborn. For example, if I'm planning to do "X" and someone either tells me "You should do X," then I won't do it. Conversely, I get annoyed if I really enjoy doing something, and I'm suddenly in a place where I can't do it anymore. This has been my experience with cooking and baking during my time in the city.

Living in small, cramped quarters and having to move every month has thrown a wrench into cooking plans. It's not the greatest idea to amass a bunch of cookware and baking ingredients only to have to lug it around on the subway semi-frequently. Also, there's a lot of really great food in the city, so I wanted to make the best of the time I have; I can cook when I'm back in Seattle.

That said, the past few weeks have been particularly rough, with respect to being homesick and generally missing the west coast and its take on Asian food (especially the Korean food I grew up with back in Vancouver). I've been living (cooking, baking) vicariously through Eric Kim and his New York Times cooking column. I thought I first discovered his recipes online, but seeing a few recipes from his cookbook made me realize that I'd come across his work before, one dark winter night at the Elliott Bay Book Company back home in Seattle.

My friend Clay happens to really enjoy cooking and baking, so he graciously let me try out the original gochujang caramel recipe. I thought it was pretty decent, but I wanted the cookie to have slightly more of a gochujang tang (the recipe calls for a heaping tbsp, but I think it could do with some more). Then I also thought about adding some Lao Gan Ma; maybe it could be a sharper flavour enhancer for the cookies.