daring baker: milan cookies

well, another month has slipped past, and that means it's time for the next daring baker's challenge reveal! i'm posting this a bit late, as life has gone from zero to hectic in the space of two weeks, but better late than never!

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.

oh glorious food network, how i miss watching you for hours on end.

the challenge could be done either doing both the mallows and the milan cookies, or just choosing one. as i was unemployed at the time i was completing the challenge, i opted for the one that i had all but one ingredient on hand for: the milan cookies! ..also i am a huge fan of these, and much less a fan of the mallow cookies, although had i had the funds, i would have tried it out just for fun.

this challenge, while it seemed easy at first glance, gave me some trouble. you'll see. let's take a look at the recipe:

milan cookies
(gale gand's recipe)

prep time: 20 min
inactive prep time: 0 min
cook time: 1 hr 0 min
serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 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

[crazy delicious] cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

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.

i think that this is where i started to have a slight problem. since i am still without an electric mixer, i was doing this all by hand. in theory, this shouldn't be a problem, but i think i just wasn't trying hard enough. my mixture at this point looked a bit odd and curdled (much like the frangipane we saw last month, except that was supposed to look that way), but i shrugged it off and forged ahead.

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.

all well and good right? i thought i was in great shape! and then i pulled my second batch out and found...well...this:


whoops! what happened?! as i had to make them in about a million batches (smallest cookie sheet ever), i theorized that both my batter and the sheet pan were just too warm. i decided to try popping the batter into the fridge and the pan into the freezer between batches, with somewhat better results. onto the filling!



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, add zest 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.

now, by the time my cookies were done baking, i was hungry and frustrated. i'd already melted the chocolate, but just didn't feel like filling the cookies - i wanted dinner instead! so i put the final two steps on hold until the next morning. the filling kept just fine, i just re-melted it, and then spread it while it was still hot.

i organized my cookies by shape (most like a real milan cookie to least like a real milan cookie) and nibbled at the deformed ones in between.


they turned out looking pretty okay...at least at the angles i photographed them. ;)

(speaking of the photographs, somehow they are getting dull and washed out between saving them in photoshop, and posting them here. i thought it was an iphoto issue (thus switching to photoshop) but it still appears to be happening. if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this, please let me know. i'm saving them as the highest jpg quality available, but maybe i need to save them as something else? my cookie edges were golden and beautiful!)

the real disappointment with my cookies came from the cookie texture itself. rather than being crisp and crumbly, it was a bit chewy and sticky; it sort of stuck on the tooth. i think this goes back, perhaps, to the creaming and egg-adding steps in the recipe, and the way it curdled and didn't mix quite right. i'd like to try these again (with some mint in the filling, too!) to see if i can remedy it.


and so concludes another month's challenge!

i have a whole bunch of photos and recipes that i just haven't had the time to post yet, leaving this blog a bit bare except for my challenges, but i *will* get to it!