Cookies

Alex Heustess
Sep 5, 2018 · 9 min read
Final Two Types of Sushi Cookies

Final Idea + Recipe

Sushi Cookie

The Sushi Cookie is a rolled cookie using the classic Rice Krispies Treat as a substitution for rice and is filled with sweet ingredients instead of the customary savory ones. I feel the Sushi Cookie is creative because of how many possibilities there are. The combinations of flavors and coatings are endless and mean this cookie can be re-done as many times as wanted. What makes it truly unique from a plain rolled cookie though is the presentation that comes with it being sushi.

Ingredients

Specialized Equipment

  • 9" x 12" Cookie tray
  • Sushi Mat

Rice Krispies

  • 2 cups Rice Krispie Cereal
  • 1 Tbsp melted butter
  • 1 cup marshmallows (really smooth them in)

Chocolate

  • 1/2 cup baking chocolate chips

Sweet Potato & Marshmallow Filling

  • 2 Tbsp roasted sweet potato
  • 2 marshmallows

Blackberry Jam, Pepper, & Marshmallow Filling

  • 1 Tbsp blackberry jam
  • 2 Marshmallows
  • Sprinkle of fresh ground pepper
  • 1/4 cup desiccated coconut

Instructions

  1. Turn the oven on to 400 degrees and when it has properly heated up, put a sweet potato, wrapped in tinfoil with holes poked in the potato, in the oven for 1 hour. It will feel squishy when it is done. When you know it is done, take it out and peel off the tinfoil and the skin. Mash the sweet potato with a fork into a smooth consistency and leave out until at room temperature.
  2. Add the butter and marshmallows to a pot on the stove top and turn the stove on low. Stir constantly until the marshmallows have melted and incorporated with the butter. Then take off the heat. Mix in the Rice Krispies and pour into a 9" x 12" cookie tray with raised edges that has been lined with wax paper. Press into the shape of the cookie tray and evenly distribute. Put in the freezer to cool it down.
  3. Cut the Rice Krispies bar into 2 separate 9" x 6" bars.
  4. For the sweet potato and marshmallow roll, put the sweet potato in a line on one of the bars (like in the image below) and tear up each marshmallow into four pieces and line them up.
  5. For the jam, pepper, and marshmallow roll, line up the ingredients and tear up the marshmallow in the same way as in step 4.
  6. To roll the sushi up, place the whole bar with toppings on the sushi mat and begin pushing the bar in a roll away from yourself. Don’t let the mat or the wax paper get caught up in the roll and make sure the filling isn’t just being pushed as you roll. It should be encased early in the process. Press tightly to make sure they won’t unroll.
  7. Put the chocolate in the microwave for one minute increments and stir until melted. Cover the sweet potato and marshmallow roll in chocolate and then roll in wax paper to give the chocolate a smooth finish.
  8. Roll the jam, pepper, and marshmallow sushi in the coconut and then drizzle remaining chocolate on top for a prettier roll.
  9. After they are in rolls, cut them into 6 even pieces like traditional sushi.
How To Position the Fillings

Idea Generation

Cookie Research

I began by researching what makes a cookie. I researched the chemistry of cookies and how different ingredients affected the outcome once a cookie was baked and set. I wanted to find the perfect combination of factors that would make a cookie as flat as possible.

I also researched the origin of cookies. Cookies originated from the need for portable food which inspired my Crepe Cookie idea because of how portable street vendor food has to be and it inspired the Pick-Me-Up Cookie as a modern and urban take on food that can keep a person awake all day.

Some of my favorite cookie design ideas were generated from the thought how to make a cookie version of a known food item. Sushi, crepes, dip, bread. Anything that seemed like it wasn’t going to be purely disgusting or undoable.

Once I felt like I had enough ideas that I really liked, then I started thinking about how I wanted them to taste. I knew I needed something palatable in a cookie which meant sugar so I thought of sweet ingredients, but each sweet ingredient should be balanced by something unique. I researched different flavor combinations that went with the sweet ingredients I liked and listed savory ingredients or spices to pair with a sweet.

From that point, I knew what I wanted to do. The only thing I had to do was make them and see if it was possible.

Idea Generation and Flavor Combinations

Idea 1 Test

Cookie Batter and Notes

Crepe Cookie

The first idea that I wanted to test was the Crepe Cookie. I like the idea of keeping the shape and the size of the cookie portable and feasible and there is nothing more feasible than a wrap. Wrapped food is the penultimate example of lazy, but got to go.

I wanted the Crepe Cookie to hold ingredients on the inside, some wet, so I thought the cookie should be as firm as possible afterward so it wouldn’t go soggy and would retain its shape. It also needed to be thin enough to have a good balance of cookie to inside ingredients, but not so thin that it would break under the weight of what was inside

I compared recipes that would make thin cookies and recipes that would make normal cookies and decided on the one in the picture. I melted the butter that it called for to make the cookie chewier and added both brown and white sugar so it could have some of the richer flavors, but not add so much moisture that it wouldn’t be crunchy once it cooled.

The Burnt Cookies

My first test was a complete failure. The cookies were burnt coming out of the oven, but also too soft on the inside to fold once they were taken out of the oven, but once they were given time to cool, they hardened into a rock. They didn’t reach the level of thinness that I wanted either. Afterward, I did some research and realized my crispy edges were probably because I kept my cookie sheet on top of the hot oven which burned the bottom. I also realized an oven wasn’t going to make the cookies as thin as I really wanted.

Idea 2 Test

Sushi Cookie Resting (left) and Sushi Cookie Notes (right)

Sushi Cookie

My second idea was the Sushi Cookie. Specifically, Maki style sushi using sweet fillings, a thin Rice Krispies bar instead of rice and a sweet outer coating instead of nori. After all of that baking, I had done with my first idea I was ready for something that involved the minimum use of the stove and oven.

The first type of sushi I made was a sweet potato and marshmallow filling rolled in a Rice Krispies bar and coated in chocolate to replace the nori. I feel that it went well through the whole process. I learned in the process that after coating the roll in chocolate, rolling it in wax paper will make for a smoother finish.

Iteration

Runny Dough
Bubbles Rising to the Top

Changes to Idea 1:

I first iterated on the Crepe Cookie by attempting to make it more like a crepe. To do so, I added two tablespoons of water to the cookie batter to make it thinner like a traditional crepe batter. Normally, cookie batter is meant to not have excess water because being dry or crispy is one of the attractive features of a cookie. Thinking about how a crepe is traditionally made, I also cooked my second batch in a frying pan. Crepes need to be flipped in the middle of their cooking process so that they are evenly cooked on both sides.

Process of Idea 1:

With the changes made to the cookie batter, I put a Tablespoon of butter onto a hot frying pan to help prevent sticking and a half cup of batter. I let it sit and cook until I could see bubbles rising to the top. Then I attempted to turn up the edges to flip it, but it began breaking. It was nicely cooked on the bottom, but still soft because cookies need time to firm up after they are taken off the heat.

I waited a little longer hoping the cookie would be more likely to flip, but before it could start to really burn, I tried to flip it. It crumbled irrecoverably. I knew I couldn’t recover it at this point and started to improvise. I began pushing it around on the pan, almost like a scrambled egg and breaking the cooked parts into smaller and smaller chunks. I didn’t make a cookie crepe, but I did make a cookie crumble.

Idea 1 was a flop unless I spent more time on it trying to make a better batter and I was happy enough with the outcome that I let it go. For a while, I planned on incorporating my cookie crumbles into the Sushi Cookie but ended up finding combinations that I liked more in the end.

Failed Cookie Flip (left) and Cookie Crumble (right)

Changes to Idea 1:

For the Sushi Cookie, the original process and the Rice Krispies worked so well there was no need to change them. What I wanted to focus down on was finding more flavor combinations that I thought would work well. I thought of flavors I liked and thought might work together and wrote them all down. Then I started taste testing all of them together and decided on which flavor combination I liked the most; pepper, blackberry jam, and marshmallow. It was sweet and fruity with a little spicy kick at the end.

Process of Idea 1: I rolled up the Sushi Cookie in the same way, but put jam, pepper, and marshmallows inside the roll. After rolling it up in the sushi mat and chilling it for a short time I rolled it in desiccated coconut and put a small drizzle of chocolate on it.

Before and After Coating of Coconut and Drizzled Chocolate
Time Table
    Alex Heustess

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