Daring Bakers: Milan Cookies

 

After a much needed relaxing 2 week break I return with the Daring Bakers challenge for this month. The Daring Bakers have made all sorts of great sweet and savory treats in the past, some very challenging and others straightforward. All have been a lot of fun and I've always learned or came across something new with each challenge. Whether it was a new technique, a new ingredient or just knowing how much heat I can stand in the kitchen - it's been a great experience.

The challenge this month was a first. We've never actually made sweet cookies before, so it was a very refreshing challenge and easy. I was relieved of that! I was short of time this month due to the unplanned vacation we decided to take and knew that if the challenge was going to be too time consuming I'd be running around in circles. When reveal date finally came around I was quite happy to see we had a choice of making two type of cookies or both. Milanos and/or Mallomars were the choice Nicole at Sweet Tooth challenged us with.

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Initially I had planned to do both and went with the Milanos first thinking that when I return from the vacation I could indulge in my marshmallow making skills with more ease after a relaxing vacation. We returned on Saturday evening and I could not bring myself to spend Sunday in the kitchen, instead I wanted to savor the last day with Tom and Soeren before we started the new work/day care week.

The Milanos were fairly easy to whip up and hardly took up time, which suited me and my pre-vacation mood just fine. I was slightly disappointed with the outcome though. There was not much of a flavor high and if it was not for the coffee flavored chocolate I used to sandwich the cookies with there would not have been much to report about in this post. The cookies itself were indistinctive in flavor, I think a bit of zesty citrus zest here might have made it more exciting. I used a coffee flavored chocolate with bits of coffee beans to make the sandwich filling and that really added the required zing. To complete the whole challenge I dipped half of the Milanos in bittersweet chocolate and gave it a sprinkling of chopped pistachios.

 

Milan Cookies

Printable version of recipe here.

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar

7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon extract
1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 ounces semisweet coffee flavored chocolate, chopped

Optional:
3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
handful pistachios, coarsely chopped

 

Method

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.
11. To coat the cookies melt the bittersweet chocolate in a bowl over a water bath. Once completely melted generously brush the cookies on both sides with the chocolate. Sprinkle with chopped pistachios and allow the chocolate to set and dry.

 

---

Verdict

All in all they were OK and they did disappear fairly quickly as I took them to work. I enjoyed the texture the coffee bean bits gave complementing the pistachios. The Milanos were light and crunchy but lacked additional pizzazz. As Soeren still has two weeks summer break we’ll be trying our second option – the Mallomars – something tells me they are going to be a hit.

Look forward to a trip with to Denmark later this week. As soon as I’ve sorted out the pictures I’ll take you for a little break to a gorgeous country and beautiful landscape.

Monthly Mingle

This month my guest host for the Monthly Mingle is Hillary from the grand blog Chew on That and she has chosen a sensational theme. I’m very excited about this one – Marvelous Melon!

Create any dish using one of the juicy melon variety and send you dish over to Hillary. Check out all the details on the Marvelous Melon announcement page.

Deadline is August 17th. Hope you’ll be joining us!

You might like these cookies from WFLH:

Marzipan Almond Kipferl	Lime Bars	Salted Macadamia Nut and Chunky White Chocolate Cookies

---

All photographs and written content on What's For Lunch, Honey? © 2006-2009 Meeta Khurana unless otherwise indicated. | All rights reserved | Please Ask First