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Compost Cookies, also known as, Kitchen Sink Cookies are a sweet and salty cookie made from whatever combination of treats you can pull out of your pantry. These cookies are always unique!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
Compost Cookies are made with a combination of salty and sweet snacks from your pantry leftovers. This cookie is both crisp and chewy as well as sweet and salty. I have also heard them called kitchen sink cookies because you put everything but the kitchen sink in them!
These crazy and delicious cookies originated from the Momofuku Milk Bar in NYC. It’s the same place that the amazing Chess Pie I shared originated from.
Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour. I prefer unbleached flour
- Sugars. Granulated sugar and light brown sugar
- Eggs
- Butter, salted butter at room temperature
- Corn Syrup. The cookie originator, Christina Tosi, uses glucose in her cookies but we are substituting in corn syrup.
- Vanilla Extract
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Kosher Salt
- Sweet and Salty Treats. You will need 1 1/2 cups of each.
How to Make Compost Cookies
- Beat together the sugars, corn syrup and butter using the paddle attachment of your mixer until it is pale and fluffy. About 2-3 minutes.
- Mix in eggs one at a time and vanilla.Â
- Beat dough for 5 minutes with a stand mixer or 10 minutes with a hand mixer, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally with a spatula.
- Add in dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Add in sweet and salty add ins. Mix these just until they are combined. You don’t want to over mix and break up items.
- Cover dough and refrigerate for an hour to overnight.Â
- Place chilled dough on a parchment-lined sheet pan bake at 350 degrees F for 9-11 minutes or until edges turn golden brown and center is still pale.
Tips
- The corn syrup makes for a chewier cookie. If you don’t have corn syrup the cookie will work fine without it.
- The long beating time allows the sugar to fully dissolve, the mixture will become a pale color and your creamed mixture will increase in size.
- The recipe is best when refrigerated before cooking, but if you need to bake right away, they are still delicious, just thinner.
- This recipe is the perfect way to use up some of your favorite snacks or opened bags of treats that tend accumulate in the pantry. Some of my favorite sweet additions include chocolate chips, white chocolate, butterscotch chips, M & M’s, Reese’s Pieces chopped candy bars, graham crackers, or other cookies like Oreos.
- These cookies are best when you include something salty as well. I recommend pretzels, potato chips, or Fritos
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best way to store leftover cookies?
Keep leftover cookies in an airtight container stored at room temperature. They will last 3-4 days.
Can I freeze compost cookies?
Compost cookies freeze well. Follow the directions for freezing cookies in this post. You can also freeze the cookie dough by following these directions.
So get creative and come up with your own combination of Compost Cookies.
Some of my other favorite cookies include:
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Compost Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter salted and softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 Tbsp corn syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips or a combination of any sweet candy or treat you have on hand such as candy bars like Twix, Raisenettes, Rollos, Cocoa Krispies
- 1 1/2 cup pretzels or a combination of salty treats such as chips, pretzels, fritos, nuts etc.
Instructions
- Mix with the paddle attachment, cream butter, sugars and corn syrup on medium high for two to three minutes until fluffy and pale yellow in color
- Turn down the speed to low and add eggs and vanilla
- Turn up speed to medium high and beat for 10 minutes
- This allows the sugar to fully dissolve, the mixture will become an almost pale white color and your creamed mixture will double in size
- After 10 minutes add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
- Mix for about another minute just until your dough comes together
- Do not over mix at this point
- At a low speed, add in the baking ingredients and mix for 30 – 45 seconds until they evenly mix into the dough
- Add in your favorite snack foods last, beating at low low speed until they are just incorporated
- Using a 6 oz. ice cream scoop, make balls of cookie dough and place onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. You will get 18 cookies making them this size, for more cookies, make them smaller.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of one hour or up to 1 week. I have baked these cookies without refrigerating the dough and they worked fine, a little thinner but still a great cookie.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees F for 9-11 minutes. The cookies should begin to brown around the edges and be pale in the middle
- Leave the cookies in the oven for the additional minutes if these colors don’t match up and your cookies still seem pale and doughy on the surface
Tips & Notes:
- Sweet Treat Ideas:
- Chocolate Chips such as semi sweet, milk chocolate, white chocolate, butterschotch chips.
- M & M’s, Reese’s Pieces
- Candy bars
- Cookies such as Oreos or Graham Crackers
- Salty Treat Ideas
- Pretzels. Use mini pretzels or whole pretzel and chop them up.
- Potato Chips
- Fritos
Judy M says
Oh no, you must be joking! “1 1/2 c of whatever sweet treat is hanging around?” Not in our house! LOOL
But tomorrow I am going looking. Can’t wait to try them.
Kelly says
These are delicious! Truth be told, we ate as much dough as we did baked:) I used pretzels, chocolate chips and caramel bits (there wasn’t much junk food in the cupboards). Can’t wait to try them again with different combination of ingredients .