Bolo Bao Cookies

To a food processor, add the sugar, custard powder, baking powder, and salt. Blitz for about a minute, then add all purpose flour and blitz again.

Add the butter and pulse until the butter completely "disappears" into the mixture — it'll have the texture of lightly wet sand. Add egg yolks and almond extract and continue processing just until the mixture pulls together.

Dump the loose dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and firmly but swiftly press the pieces together, kneading lightly if needed, to form a more cohesive dough. If the dough is too crumbly and won't come together, you can wet your hands and flick just a bit of water onto the dough — just until it comes together. Wrap the dough in the plastic and roll into a neat log shape. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Add butter to a medium-sized, light colored pot or pan. Heat on medium until butter melts, then stir, scraping the bottom constantly, with a heatproof spatula until you see brown bits at the bottom of the pan. This browning process can happen quickly and may end up burning if you're not watching carefully! *As soon as* the butter solids turn light brown, pour the butter into a medium-sized mixing bowl to help stop the cooking.

Add sugar, brown sugar, and salt to the hot butter and CAREFULLY stir to combine. Let rest at room temperature, giving the mixture a couple stirs with a whisk every 10-15 minutes or so until the mixture is warm (not hot), becomes cohesive (but not completely solid/firm), and starts to lighten in color/become opaque as you whisk. This can take anywhere from 20-60 minutes total depending on the season/the temperature of your house. If your kitchen is very warm you can do this step in the refrigerator but you'll want to make sure the mixture remains soft and doesn't completely harden.

Give the cooled mixture a good stir to "fluff" it up. Add baking powder, baking soda, and milk powder and mix to combine well.

Add egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and mix well to combine before adding the bread flour and gently folding it in. Once flour is moistened, mix well to combine. The dough may feel a touch on the dry side, but just continue mixing until incorporated. IF USING SALTED EGG YOLKS — crumble the yolks in with your finger tips towards the end of adding the flour and stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Remove topping from the refrigerator, unwrap, and carefully slice into 12 discs. If the discs crumble as you're cutting them, simply grab the pieces and press/squeeze/gently knead them in your hand, warming them slightly. They should come together. Set aside.

Scoop egg-sized balls of dough and roll between your hands to achieve a smooth ball (I use a ~2 Tbsp cookie scoop for this). Place balls 3" apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Taking one disc of topping between your fingers, gently pinch, press, and rotate the disk until it's about 2" in diameter (quite a bit larger than the diameter of the dough balls). Dust your fingers and work surface lightly with flour if you experience any sticking.UPDATE: I've done a lot of experimentation and while the technique above works, this is what I do now. Grab a disc of topping and place it on a cutting board or clean flat surface. Use the heel of your hand to push down and forward to flatten and spread the disc out into and irregular circle about 1.5-2" in diameter. The goal is to create some uneven thickness in the disc, which helps to create that characteristic pineapple texture. Use a bench scraper to swiftly scrape the flattened disc off the surface and transfer it to the cookie dough. I'll link a reference video below so you can see how I do it.***

Gently drape the topping circle over each dough ball without pressing it down, so the topping circle is sitting on top of the dough ball almost like a UFO (it's ok if it sags or drapes down on its own).

To make the egg wash, mix egg yolk, water, and salt in a small dish until well combined.

Brush the top of each topping layer with egg yolk mixture. Bake for 12 minutes at 350F, then turn on the top broiler of your oven to 450F and broil for 2-3 minutes until the bolo topping starts to brown. Keep an eye on your cookies here and move the pan around as necessary to ensure each cookie receives some color — you may leave the oven door open during this step as well.You can also skip the broiling step entirely and just bake the cookies at 350F for an additional 3-5 minutes until golden brown at the edges, but your bolo topping will end up on the pale side.

Remove cookies from oven and wait 5 minutes, then transfer each cookie to a cooling rack to finish cooling. I find these are best enjoyed once completely cool, as it gives the bolo topping time to firm up correctly.